We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 Frame Dance Music Composition Competition!  Their work will be presented by Frame Dance throughout 2015.  Many thanks to all who submitted and our incredible panel.

First Place: Alex Freeman

Blueshift

for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion

Alex Freeman (b. 28 April 1972) is a recipient of the 2014 McKnight Composer Fellowship. His music has garnered acclaim and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, ASCAP, The American Scandinavian Foundation, the Sibelius Academy, American Composers Forum and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Raleigh, NC, He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Boston University’s School of Fine Arts, and the Juilliard School, where he completed his doctoral studies in 2004. His doctoral research led him to Finland, via Fulbright Fellowship, where he lived for six years, studying at The Sibelius Academy and freelancing, before he assumed his current position of Assistant Professor of Music in Composition at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. His chamber works and choral music are performed regularly in the US and abroad.

Recordings of his music have been released by Albany Records, Innova Recordings, and Navona Records, including, most recently, a CD of complete his piano works by Albany Records, Inner Voice, a recording of his chamber work, Blueshift, by Parma Recordings, and internationally acclaimed recordings of his choral works by The HOL Choir and Tapiola Children’s Choir. His degrees are from The Juilliard School, Boston University, and The Eastman School of Music.

Second Place: Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro

Miniatures

For Steel String Guitar Duet

Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro (b.1984 Bogotá, Colombia) is a Nicaraguan-American composer and guitarist. He is pursuing his PhD at UC Davis, and is currently studying with Mika Pelo.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2007 where he studied composition with Fabien Lévy and Sebastian Currier, and orchestration with Tristan Murail. He has also worked as a freelance musician in New Haven, CT, and was a professor of theory, analysis and guitar at the Casa de los 3mundos music academy in Granada, Nicaragua. His work draws upon a variety of interests including linguistics, spectralism and the physical properties of sound, psychoacoustics and geology.

Third Place: Joel Love

Lightscape

for string quartet

The music of Joel Love explores an eclectic mix of genres, from short video pieces to works for chamber and large ensembles. It creates colorful landscapes of sound through the use of image, melody, and extended tonality, and seeks to reveal the connection between music and spirituality.

Joel was recently commissioned to compose a new work, Lightscape, for the opening of light artist James Turrell’s The Color Inside, which was unveiled in October of 2013.  Molly Glentzer from the Houston Chronicle wrote that “the music evocatively captures the emotion of The Color Inside.” PARMA Recordings selected Lux and Synchronicity in Purple Minor for publication in their 2013 and 2012 Anthology, respectively.  In May of 2013, Aurora Borealis was selected as a finalist in the 3rd International Franck Ticheli Composition Contest.  In 2010, Real Fiction received a Compositional Excellence Citation by the New York Youth Symphony. In 2009, Da Camera of Houston presented Joel with an Aspiring Artist Award and the commission of Just One Person.

Joel’s works have been performed by The Aura Contemporary Music Ensemble, The California State University Los Angeles Wind Ensemble, Da Camera of Houston’s Young Artists, The Boston New Music Initiative, the Ohio State University Wind Symphony, the Texas A&M University Symphonic Winds , the Lamar University A Capella Choir and Wind Ensemble, the University of Texas Wind Symphony, and exhibited at many art galleries throughout the United States.  Joel’s first work for wind ensemble, Aurora Borealis, was recently selected for performance at the 2013 SCI National Conference.  In a recent review of 2013 SXSW events, Capital Public Radio’s Nick Brunner commented that “The Peace of Wild Things” was a “gorgeous piece of music, wafting along into the ether.”

His film scores include the documentary film Stitched, official selection at the 2011 Carmel Art and Film Festival, as well as a short film Kidfellas, “Best Musical Score” at Houston’s 2011 48-Hour Film Project. Other notable collaborations with artists from other disciplines feature a city-wide public art exhibit with artist Karyn Olivier, Inboud: Houston, and a 3-month installation by Prince V. Thomas, On Joy, On Sorrow at the Houston Center for Photography, praised by the Houston Chronicle as ”a beautiful piece that feels cleansing to watch.”  

Joel recently completed a DMA in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin and holds degrees from The University of Houston’s Moores School of Music (M.Music) and Lamar University’s Mary Morgan Department of Music (B.Music).

Film Score Winner: Leah Reid

Ring, Resonate, Resound

7 channel acousmatic composition

Leah Reid (b. 1985, New Hampshire) writes vibrant compositions that examine the innermost nature of sounds. Reid’s work is noted for its exploration of time, timbre and texture. Reid holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in composition from Stanford University and a B.Mus in composition from McGill University. She was awarded the Pauline Oliveros Prize for her piece “Pressure” for viola and electroacoustic media. Reid has had works performed in the United States, Canada and Europe with premieres by Livia Sohn, Geoff Nuttall, the Jack Quartet, Sound Gear, Talea, Seth Josel, the Pheonix String Quartet and McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble. Reid’s principal teachers include Mark Applebaum, Jonathan Berger, Brian Ferneyhough, and Sean Ferguson.

Reid currently teaches at the University of the Pacific and continues her research on the compositional applications of multidimensional timbre representations.

The Panel included Robert Honstein, Robert McClure, Charles Halka, Micah Clark and Frame Dance Artistic Director Lydia Hance.