April 16, 2012
Contact Information:
Patricia Gray, Luna Nova Music, President
Belvedere Chamber Music Festival Student Composition Contest 2012 Winners Announced
1st Place Kyle Vanderburg - University of Oklahoma Foi dans l'aléatoire (flute and piano)
Kyle Vanderburg (b. 1986) is a composer of eclectically polystylistic music fueled by rhythmic drive and melodic infatuation. Kyle holds affiliations with ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, the Society of Composers Incorporated, the National Association of Composers/USA, and the Society for Electro-Ââ€Acoustic Music in the United States. Additionally, he sits on the board of directors of the Oklahoma Composers Association, a 501c3 nonprofit. Kyle has studied composition with Marvin Lamb, Konstantinos Karathanasis, and Carlyle Sharpe, improvised composition with Marc Jensen, and has participated in composition masterclasses with David Maslanka, Chris Brubeck, Eric V. Hachikian, and Joël-Ââ€François Durand. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) in Music Composition and Theory from Drury University in Springfield, Missouri and a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Oklahoma, where he is currently a DMA candidate in composition and graduate assistant in music IT. For more information, please visit the composer's website: www.kylevanderburg.com
2nd Place Joshua Fishbein -Â UCLA Trio Without Words (violin, cello, and piano)
An accomplished singer and pianist, Joshua Fishbein (b. 1984) composes both vocal and instrumental music. Currently, Fishbein is a PhD student in Music Composition at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music. He has won numerous composition prizes from music organizations such as BMI, the American Choral Directors Association, the Guild of Temple Musicians, the National Lutheran Choir, The Esoterics, WomenSing, and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. Fishbein completed his Master’s degree in Music Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), where he won first prize in the SFCM Artsong Competition, and where he served as Assistant Conductor of the Conservatory Chorus. While earning undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Music at Carnegie Mellon University, Fishbein won the Harry G. Archer Prize in orchestral composition. A native of Baltimore, Fishbein studied piano performance and music theory at The Peabody Preparatory. For more information, please visit the composer’s website: www.fishbeinmusic.com
These winning compositions will be performed by the Luna Nova Ensemble (www.lunanova.org) at the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee June 20-Ââ€23, 2012 (www.belvederefestival.org).
Contest History
This composition contest was begun in 2002 as part of the new music collaboration of the Associated Colleges of the South. Members include such institutions as Davidson, Washington and Lee, Birmingham-Ââ€Southern College, Rhodes College, Trinity University, and Rollins College. It was designed to enrich the work of student composers by giving them the chance to have the work recognized beyond their home campuses. They received a performance at the annual ACS New Music Festival and a recording of the work made by the Luna Nova New Music Ensemble (www.lunanova.org).
Winners were selected by a panel of nationally known judges including Pulitzer Prize winners Samuel Adler, Leslie Bassett, Paul Moravec, and William Bolcom. In 2006 the contest was expanded and opened up to undergraduates from the 87 members colleges of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (www.nitle.org). Since 2007 the contest has been sponsored by the Beethoven Club of Memphis (www.beethovenclubmemphis.org) and is part of the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival (www.belvederefestival.org) held each June in Memphis, Tennessee. It is now an international contest open to student composers under the age of 30. Typically, the contest receives approximately 40 entries from countries around the world. Winners are required to attend the festival where they participate in rehearsals and performances.
