Narong Prangcharoen Wins $15K 2013 Barlow Prize

The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition has awarded Narong Prangcharoen the $15,000 2013 Barlow Prize to compose a major new work for wind ensemble. In addition, grants to nine other composers totaling $60K were announced, as well as a $10K commission for a Chinese composer in partnership with the Beijing Modern Music Festival.

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NewMusicBox Staff

Narong Prangcharoen

The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University has awarded Narong Prangcharoen the $15,000 2013 Barlow Prize to compose a major new work for wind ensemble. David Dzubay of Bloomington, Indiana, was granted the distinction of honorable mention in this competition.

Thailand-born and Kansas City-based Narong Prangcharoen (b. 1973) was one of the seven participants in the 2010 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, the winner of both the American Composers Orchestra’s 2011 Annual Underwood Commission and 2011 Audience Choice Award, and the recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship. His three year composer residency with the Pacific Symphony is one of five creative partnerships currently being supported through Music Alive, a program jointly administered by New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. Prangcharoen has a DMA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City where his primary teacher was Chen Yi. His mentors have included Paul Chihara, Zhou Long, and Augusta Read Thomas. He currently teaches in the Community Music and Dance Academy of the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri (Kansas City). His large ensemble scores are available from the Theodore Presser Company, which signed him to their roster of published composers earlier this year, and two CDs devoted exclusively to Prangcharoen’s music have been released on Albany Records: Phenomenon (2009) and Mantras (2012).
There were a total of 240 composer applications from around the world submitted for consideration for the 2013 Barlow Prize. In addition, there were 135 applications for the Barlow Endowment’s General and LDS (Latter-day Saints) commissioning programs, out of which nine composer received grants totalling $60,000 to write works for the following ensembles and musicians: Chen Yi (Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra); Huck Hodge (Divertimento Ensemble); Kurt Rohde (cellist Michelle Kesler); Diana Soh (Duo Hevans); Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon (Yarn/Wire), Schuyler Tsuda (ECCE); Daniel Bradshaw (Montana State University Symphony); Lansing McLoskey (ensemberlino vocale); and Benjamin Taylor (pianist Keith Kirchoff). Benjamin Taylor’s LDS commission has support from the estate of Jeanette Barlow Dieman.

The judging panel for the above awards included the Endowment’s Board of Advisors: Ethan Wickman, Todd Coleman, Stacy Garrop, Christian Asplund, and James Mobberley. Steve Roens served as a guest judge in most of the deliberations. Michael Colburn, Donald Peterson, and Richard Clary represented the United States Marine Band, Brigham Young University’s Wind Symphony, and Florida State University’s Wind Orchestra respectively in selecting the Barlow Prize. These ensembles form the Endowment’s performing consortium, which will premiere the new work in 2015.

The Barlow Endowment also sponsored a 2013 special Chinese competition open to all Chinese composers. Zheng Yang emerged as the winner of that $10,000 competition. Yang will receive a commission to compose a 10-12 minute work for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion that will be premiered at the 2014 Beijing Modern Music Festival (BMMF). The judging committee also awarded an honorable mention to Stephen Yip for this competition. Ye Xiaogang of the BMMF and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing joined forces with Barlow’s Board of Advisors in administering and judging this competition.
Since 1985 a composer has been awarded a Barlow Prize to compose a work for a specific instrumentation which changes every year. Past recipients of the prize include Daron Hagen, Harold Meltzer, Kevin Puts, David Rakowski, Chris Theophanidis, Dan Visconti, and Zhou Long, as well as international composers Judith Bingham (United Kingdom), Maija Einfelde (Latvia), and Otto Ketting (Netherlands). Past commissions have included works for string quartet, solo piano, wind quintet, and unaccompanied chorus. For the 2013 Barlow Prize, the commission fee was raised to $15,000. Next year’s Barlow Prize will feature a new work for saxophone quartet.

(from the press release)