JACK Quartet, mentioned above in the item about the Chamber Music San Francisco season, was the winner of the 2011-2012 Finale National Composition Contest, an important project with an awkward name. The program went on hiatus for a season, returning last September under its new name, the American Composers Forum National Composition Contest — still a bit unyieldy, but an improvement.
News from the ... let's call it Composers Forum is that three student composers have been chosen (from more than 250 applicants) as finalists: Michael Laurello (Yale School of Music), Todd Lerew (CalArts), and Kristina Warren (University of Virginia). Each of them will receive a cash prize and is expected to compose an 8-to-10-minute piece for So Percussion.
These works will be workshopped with the finalists in residence, and premiered by So Percussion in July at Princeton University, as part of the So Percussion Summer Institute 2014. One of the works will receive the final prize, which includes an additional cash award and future public performances by So Percussion.
The National Composition Contest is open to composers currently enrolled in graduate and undergraduate institutions in the U.S. "The Forum is thrilled with the opportunity to connect new voices with extraordinary ensembles like So Percussion," says John Nuechterlein, Forum president and CEO.
"Similar to our previous collaborations with eighth blackbird and JACK Quartet, the discovery process is exhilarating for the performers and immensely rewarding for the selected composers."
Lerew, 27, is a Los Angeles-based composer working with invented acoustic instruments, "repurposed found objects," and unique preparations of traditional instruments. He is the inventor of the Quartz Cantabile, which utilizes a principle of thermoacoustics to convert heat into sound, and has presented the instrument at Stanford's CCRMA, the American Musical Instrument Society annual conference, and elsewhere.
Lerew is the founder and curator of Telephone Music, a collaborative music and memory project based on the children's game of Telephone, the last round of which was released as an exclusive download to subscribers of music magazine The Wire. His solo piece for e-bowed gu zheng, entitled Lithic Fragments, is available on cassette on the Brunch Groupe label. His pieces have been performed by members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Wet Ink Ensemble (New York), the Now Hear Ensemble (Santa Barbara), and the Canticum Ostrava choir (Czech Republic).
Lerew was a San Francisco resident for three years, between graduation from Hampshire College in 2009 and matriculation at CalArts in 2012. While in San Francisco, Lerew says:
I was mostly working in non-profit education (not music), first as a tutor and later as a college advisor at Balboa and Washington High Schools. I had just a few concerts while living there (Luggage Store Gallery, Turquoise Yantra Grotto with Bart Hopkin), and I had a piece performed by members of the S.F. Symphony Chorus — this was a reading organized by the Guerrilla Composers Guild. But I have actually had more shows there since moving down to LA, such as* A piece for floor tom and melted wax at the Thingamajigs Festival back in October at Meridian Gallery, on a program with Tim Phillips, Fred Frith, and Sudhu Tewari.
* Invented monochords that I made for Santa Barbara-based Now Hear Ensemble which premiered at CNMAT and received a second performance at Mills.
* In January, I had a portrait concert with four recent pieces, again at Meridian Gallery, this time through their Composers in Perfornance series.
* Also a couple weeks ago, a repeat performance of my fire organ (the Quartz Cantabile) at the Turquoise Yantra Grotto, this time with Cheryl Leonard.