Yeeren Low, formerly of Raleigh, Is BMI Composer Award Winner
Yeeren Low, 11, is among nine winners of the 56th Annual BMI Composer Awards. In this case, the picture is truly worth a thousand words, so see http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/536618 [inactive 2/10]. Low’s former piano teacher, John Ruggero, writes that “The BMI is the premiere competition for up-and-coming young composers. Usually graduate students win one of these awards. He and his older brother Yeeray have been studying composition with Ira Taxin at Juilliard since September. Both brothers have had numerous new compositions performed there including a reading of Yeeren’s first symphony. The brothers moved to New York in late December.”
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UNC’s Kenan Music Scholars Announced
The UNC News Service announced June 3 that four students have been named Kenan Music Scholars at UNC. The winners are “Michael Fatum, a trumpet player from Chicago, Caroline Mason, a soprano from Camp Lejeune, Aaron Robinson, a tuba player from Wake Forest, and Qiudi Zhang, a clarinetist from Winston-Salem. The students competed against 240 fellow musicians for the coveted scholarships in the College of Arts and Sciences…. The scholarships cover in-state tuition, student fees, room and board. Scholarship recipients are not required to pay out-of-state tuition. The program also provides a $6,000 allowance for study abroad, work with a particular performer, internships with elite music groups, attendance at music festivals and other music events, and travel to auditions for graduate school programs. Four new Kenan Music Scholars are selected annually. The awards began last year.
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Durham Symphony Names Five Finalists for Music Director
On May 30, the Durham Symphony Orchestra announced five Music Director finalists (from an exceptionally large field of candidates). The selectees, shown in alphabetical order, and their current affiliations, are:
William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor of the North Carolina Symphony
Harry Davidson, Music Director of the Duke Symphony Orchestra
Fouad Fakhouri, Music Director of the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra
Andrew McAfee, Conductor, Triangle Youth Ballet, and former Principal Horn of the North Carolina Symphony, &
Wayne Wyman, Managing Director of Capitol Opera Raleigh.
Each will conduct the DSO at some point during the next year. CVNC will show the assignments and programs when the orchestra announces its 2008-9 season.
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UNC Musicology Students Receive Summer Music Fellowships
The UNC News Service on May 30 announced that three musicology graduate students at UNC have been awarded summer fellowships at the Library of Congress. “The recipients of the 2008 James W. Pruett Summer Research Fellowships in Music are Naomi Graber of Silver Spring, MD, Christopher Wells of New York City, NY, and Jeff Wright of Mesa, AZ. The fellowships honor James W. Pruett, Chair of UNC’s Music Department from 1976 to 1986 and Chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress from 1987 to 1994. Now retired, Pruett lives in Chapel Hill. The students will research the 1975 musical Chicago, the National Negro Opera Company, and the World War II music of American composer Samuel Barber. The program represents collaboration between a leading public university and a major U.S. research institution. The fellows will spend half their time processing archival collections for the music division of the Library of Congress and the rest conducting their own research.”
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Awards: Wesley Arnold Owns Brevard College Honors
May 17, 2008, Brevard, NC: During annual student award presentations at Brevard College on April 23, guitarist Wesley Arnold swept the major Music categories in addition to performing live for the ceremonies. His awards for 2008 were: 1) Music Theory Achievement Award; 2) Music History Achievement Award’; 3) Highest Grade Point Average – Senior; 4) Outstanding Music Major; & 5) Outstanding Potential Teacher Award. During the 2007 presentations he was cited for three awards.
Arnold, a Jack Kent-Cooke Foundation scholar and transfer student from Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, chose Brevard College to complete his undergraduate program based on the strength of the Music Department and outstanding guitar curriculum. He has been a student of Roger Allen Cope for five years.
During the spring term he was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society. He performed his solo Senior Recital on March 1; the program included his own transcription of a complete suite by J.S. Bach and three centuries of music represented by Mauro Giuliani, Yuquijiro Yocoh, Nikita Koshkin, and Guido Santorsola. During campus Commencement Ceremonies on May 17 Arnold graduated summa cum laude.
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