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Sebastian Currier has won the 2007 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for “Static,” a six-movement piece for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Currier, who teaches at Columbia University, studied at the Manhattan and Julliard schools of music. His winning work was commissioned by Copland House of Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., for its resident ensemble, Music from Copland House, with funds from Meet the Composer, a national organization supporting new works by composers.
The ensemble premiered the piece at Columbia’s Miller Theatre in February 2005 and recorded it for Koch International Classics. Frank has details over at NewMusicBox.
And speaking of Mr. Oteri, he’s mad as hell about the second-class citizenship of post-classical composers and he’s not going to take it anymore…in the Composers Forum.
This is kind of a neat choice. I don’t know Sebastian personally, although we’ve come close to meeting a few times. His output, like most composers, varies somewhat in persuasiveness, but his best stuff is bone-chilling good. Check out Vocalissimus, for example.
“Heh, not exactly a Kurtag or a Luto piece…”
I haven’t heard the piece either, but it’s hard to judge a work on snippets.
You can hear snippets (for whatever that’s worth) of Static here: http://www.amazon.com/Verge-Chamber-Music-Sebastian-Currier/dp/B000LP4OGA/ref=sr_1_5/103-7647305-4664651?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1173449123&sr=8-5
Heh, not exactly a Kurtag or a Luto piece…