Copland House Announces 2018 Residency Awards

An unusually diverse group of 12 highly-gifted composers has been selected to receive the 2018 Copland House Residency Awards. Ranging in age from 31 to 57, these four women and eight men from eight states come from widely-varied personal and artistic backgrounds, and have pursued divergent creative paths from concert music to jazz, acoustic to electronic, minutely-detailed to free and improvisatory, socially-engaged to abstract. They include a 2018 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, recipients of the Charles Ives Living award and Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Career Grant, and two much-acclaimed concert and jazz pianists.

Artistic and Executive Director Michael Boriskin announced that Copland House's Residents for 2018-19 will be Michael Brown, 31 (New York, NY); KE-CHIA CHEN, 38 (Philadelphia, PA); ANDREA CLEARFIELD, 57 (Philadelphia, PA); MICHAEL FIDAY, 57 (Cincinnati, OH); MICHAEL GILBERTSON, 31 (San Francisco, CA); HUCK HODGE, 41 (Seattle, WA); BENJAMIN KRAUSE, 33 (Valparaiso, IN); REMY LE BOEUF, 32 (Brooklyn, NY); ZIBUOKLE MARTINAITYTE, 45 (New York, NY); PAULA MATTHUSEN, 39 (Middletown, CT); JUSTIN MERRITT, 43 (Northfield, MN); and GREG REITAN, 45 (South Pasadena, CA). Clearfield, Martinaityte, and Merritt are returning for their second Residencies, and Gilbertson was a 2015 Fellow of Copland House's CULTIVATE emerging composers institute.

This brings to nearly 175 the number of residencies hosted by Copland House since its flagship composers' program was launched 20 years ago this fall. These coveted, all-expenses-paid, short-term stays at Aaron Copland's National Historic Landmark home in New York's Lower Hudson Valley - "one of the best working spots on earth," according to 2015 Resident Jeremy Gill - provide composers with the opportunity to focus undisturbed on their creative work in the same inspiring, bucolic environment that Copland himself enjoyed for the last 30 years of his life. As Copland House Residents, they also become eligible for various post-residency Copland House awards, commissions, and performance and recording opportunities.

The new Residents were selected out of 82 applicants from 26 states, the District of Columbia, and two foreign countries by this year's eminent composer jury, which included two-time Copland House Resident Pierre Jalbert, former Manhattan School of Music President Robert Sirota, and Guggenheim Foundation Fellow Dalit Warshaw. "I was tremendously impressed with the quality of the applicants and the broad-ranging diversity of their stylistic approaches," said Sirota. "It was great to get a sense of how much compelling music is being written now. And what an awesome thing it was to sit in Aaron Copland's studio for two full days and talk only about composing with this distinguished panel!"

Reflecting on his stay last year, Nilo Alcala said, "The Copland House Residency gives meaning and reality to a 'composer's utopia.' Everything about it was utterly ideal, and I will carry that experience with me wherever I go. The rich history of the house and the palpable inspiration I felt truly energized my productivity, motivation, focus, and creativity.'"

The new works these Residents plan to create or develop while at Copland House are variously inspired by New Haven's Armistad trials, ancient Tibetan court songs, climate change, a runaway child who befriends the spirits in a nearby forest, and the intersection of geometry, poetry, and music; these compositions run the gamut from solo instrumental and small ensemble to chorus, symphony, and jazz orchestra.

An Official Project of the federal Save America's Treasures program, Copland House is the only composer's home in the U.S. devoted to nurturing and renewing America's rich musical heritage through a broad range of nationwide public, educational, musical, and electronic-media activities that embrace the entire creative process. Find out more about Copland House and its activities on its website, or by call (914) 788-4659.

Photo: L to R top row: Michael Brown, Ke-Chia Chen, Andrea Clearfield Michael Fiday; middle row: Michael Gilbertson, Huck Hodge, Benjamin Krause, Remy Le Boeuf; bottom row: Zibuokle Martinaityte, Paula Matthusen, Justin Merritt, Greg Reitan.