December 23, 2002
THE WALLACE ALEXANDER GERBODE FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES
NEW COMMISSIONS for BAY AREA MUSIC COMPOSITIONS
The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation is pleased to announce the presentation of grants to six nonprofit Bay Area performing and producing organizations for the commissioning of major compositions from six Northern California composers. The grants were initially intended to be $25,000 each. However, thanks to additional funds provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Gerbode Foundation will make six grants of $50,000, with half ($25,000) of each grant earmarked as a commission to a composer, and the remainder ($25,000) to be spent on production, presentation and documentation of the composition’s world premiere performance.
The grantees for the Gerbode Music Composition Awards are:
The Kronos Performing Arts Association aka Kronos Quartet/Terry Riley. The internationally-known Kronos Quartet will commission a new work from veteran Bay Area composer Terry Riley. This new sextet will premiere locally in June 2005 (on the occasion of Riley’s 70th birthday) in a performance by Kronos, keyboard-vocalist Riley and Wu Man, a virtuoso of the pipa (Chinese four-stringed lute).
Pacific Chamber Symphony/Wayne Peterson. The San Leandro-based Pacific
Chamber Symphony will commission a chamber orchestral work from native San Francisco composer Wayne Peterson, a Pulitzer Prize honoree whose compositions have been widely performed.
San Francisco Chamber Orchestra/Paul Dresher. The San Francisco Chamber
Orchestra will commission a new orchestral piece from Paul Dresher, composer and leader of the Paul Dresher Ensemble and the Electro-Acoustic Band.
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players/Pablo Ortiz. The SF Contemporary Music Players will commission a new work from composer and University of California, Davis music professor Pablo Ortiz, a Buenos Aires native now based in California.
SF Friends of Chamber Music & Del Sol String Quartet/ Keeril Makan. Bay Area-based Del Sol String Quartet (applying under the fiscal umbrella of the SF Friends of Chamber Music) will commission a work for strings and percussion from young Berkeley composer and former Fulbright scholar Keeril Makan. [emphasis added]
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/Miya Masaoka. San Francisco’s Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts will commission San Francisco composer and koto player Miya Masaoka to create a piece for “vocal orchestra,” to be initially performed by more than 100 singers from throughout the Bay Area.
(over)
Commenting on the grants, Gerbode Foundation president Thomas C. Layton noted, “Northern California is home to many worthy musical organizations and to quite a few inventive, respected composers. With generous help from the Hewlett Foundation, we are pleased to support the creation of important new works by some well-established area composers, as well as some promising younger artists. We look forward to these pieces premiering before Bay Area audiences in the years to come.”
ABOUT THE SPECIAL AWARDS PROGRAM
For more than 15 years, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation has made innovative grants through its Special Awards Program to San Francisco Bay Area arts institutions for the commission of new works by gifted Northern California artists including playwrights, choreographers, visual artists, poets, composers, and multi-media artists.
These awards have resulted in important, meaningful, and cutting-edge new pieces by both prominent artists and up-and-coming creators. The grants have supported artists at critical junctures in their careers; enabled nonprofit local arts organizations to develop and premiere substantial new works; and, offered local audiences, readers, and viewers first access to such works.
Among the new works supported by these grants are Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Angels in America, important new dance compositions by Margaret Jenkins and Alonzo King, musical compositions by John Adams and the late Lou Harrison, and numerous public visual art pieces throughout the city of San Francisco.
The Gerbode Foundation’s Special Awards, in some years compounded in monetary value by generous contributions from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, have also assisted small but worthy arts community institutions and lesser-known artists reflecting the wide range of ethnic, cultural, and aesthetic diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area arts scene. At a time of substantial cutbacks in private and municipal arts giving, when individual artists have great difficulty securing funding for worthwhile endeavors, the Gerbode Foundation’s commissioning grants are highly coveted and nationally respected.
The San Francisco-based Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation annually gives Special Awards to the arts, including, in past years, Visual Arts, Choreography, Theater, Photography and Poetry. The last time commissions for new compositions were funded was in 1989, at which time recipients included:
80 Langton Street: Chris Brown
City Celebration, Jazz in the City: Tony Williams
Composers, Inc.: Wayne Peterson
Pacifica Foundation: Lou Harrison
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players: John Adams
San Francisco Girls Chorus: Anithaca by Elinor Armer
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