Awards

For additional photos of Augusta Read Thomas and colleagues, click here.

Augusta Read Thomas's Ceremonial chosen for 2001 International Rostrum of Composers

Ceremonial, for orchestra, was chosen as a Recommended Work at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers.

The International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) is organized by the International Music Council with the support of assistance of UNESCO and of participating radio networks. It is an international forum of representatives of broadcasting organizations who come together annually for the purpose of fostering the exchange and broadcast of contemporary music: for example works chosen at the preceding Rostrum (2000) were given some 700 broadcasts by participating networks and affiliates of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU); some of the works were performed in public concerts.

Ceremonial is one of nine recommended works chosen for the 2001 Rostrum.

Grammy Award-winning recording!

"Colors of Love," the album by Chanticleer, won a Grammy Award at the February 2000 ceremony in Los Angeles for "Best Recording by a Small Ensemble, with or without conductor."

This collection of all contemporary music features two works by Augusta Read Thomas: The Rub of Love, and Love Songs. Excerpts from this recording can be heard on the Recordings page. Other works on "Colors of Love" are by Bernard Rands, Steven Stucky, John Tavener, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, and Steven Sametz. The recording is available on Teldec (#3984-24570-2), and can be purchased from your favorite record retailer.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced on February 27, 2001 the recipients of this year's awards in music, selected by a committee of Academy members: Jack Beeson, Andrew Imbrie, George Perle, and Ned Rorem. The awards were presented at the Academy's annual Ceremonial on May 16.

Augusta Read Thomas received an Academy Award in Music, honoring lifetime achievement and acknowledging a composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. The award totals $15,000.00, $7,500.00 of which is to be used toward a CD recording of her music.

The citation on Thomas's award reads "Augusta Read Thomas's music mixes extraordinary clarity and elegance with a bold resonant vitality. Its inventiveness, its lyric turns seem almost magically sustained; and, unfailingly, result in a beautiful immediacy."

Augusta Read Thomas, a member of the composition faculty at the Eastman School of Music, is winner of a sponsorship prize from the Ernst von Siemens Foundation. The award will be presented at a ceremony June 20, by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, at the Cuvilliés Theater in Munich, Germany. The sponsorship of 50,000 German marks (approximately $27,000-$30,000 US) is not meant to commission a specific musical composition, but is to be used by Thomas to support her overall work as a composer.

Established in 1972 by Ernst von Siemens, the music award program recognizes special achievements by composers, performers and musicologists "to further their artistic production and to direct valuable works of art to the general public," according to the Siemens Foundation. Each year, the foundation's Board of Trustees selects one winner for the major prize of 250,000 German marks, and presents a number of sponsorship prizes totalling more than a million marks.

The board currently comprises leading composers, a conductor, a musicologist and two cultural managers. Past recipients of the Siemens Award include composers Benjamin Britten, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez and György Ligeti; conductors Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein; pianist Rudolf Serkin; and violinist Yehudi Menuhin. In addition to Ms. Thomas, also receiving prizes this year are Mauricio Kagel, Hanspeter Kyburz, and Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini.

Frequently listed among America's top young composers, Augusta Read Thomas is an associate professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music and also holds the position of Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Conductors including Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Slatkin and John Nelson have programmed her music. She has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, BMI, the American Academy, the Institute for American Music, and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others.

Ernst von Siemens' grandfather was founder of Siemens AG, now a worldwide producer of electrical and electronics products with headquarters in Munich.

For more information about the award, contact the Ernst von Siemens Foundation (telephone +49-89-636-32907, fax +49-89-636-32981).

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