Friday (6/15) on NewMusicBox.com, Rob Deemer writes about violinist Hilary Hahn’s composition contest, titled the Encores Project: “I was really impressed by the structure of the contest–the fact that, while works had to be completely new, both the instrumentation (violin and piano) and duration (3.5-5 minutes in length) would not be burdensome to composers who wished to take part. It proved to me that the sponsor cared about the creators. The fact that as many as 10 honorable mentions might be picked as well as the grand prize winner demonstrated that this was not a ‘kingmaker’ contest, but one that truly strove for diversity and a wide net. Finally, and most impressive to me, not only was there no fee, but $2 would be donated to the Dramatic Need charity for every entry. One only hopes that other contests take note of these welcome items.” The winner, announced June 15, is Jeff Myers with The Angry Birds of Kauai. Hahn says the project “arose out of a time when it seemed that there were so many encore collections coming out in print and recordings, and about ten years ago I was curious where the new encore collections were. I realized that while I would hear people play new encores after concertos, I just wasn’t feeling that people were aware that new pieces could be written as encores and could really catch on.”
Posted June 18, 2012
