“The terrifically talented composer Michael Hersch just earned another honor, this one worth $250,000,” writes Tim Smith in Tuesday’s (1/31) Baltimore Sun. “Hersch, a composer known for extraordinarily complex and emotionally rich works, is the recipient of the 2017 President’s Frontier Award from Johns Hopkins University. Hersch will receive $250,000 ‘for research and innovation.’ Hersch is an alumnus of the Peabody Institute of JHU, where he joined the faculty in 2006. He heads the composition department [and is] known for writing lengthy works—his ‘Vanishing Pavilions’ for solo piano lasts three hours, for example…. Hersch has come to wide attention for orchestral, vocal, chamber and solo instrumental works. Hersch said that the Frontier Award would allow him to concentrate on composing ‘free from financial worry’ … Recent highlights of Hersch’s career include his first opera ‘On the Threshold of Winter,’ a piece for soprano and orchestra based on death-haunted poems by Marin Sorescu.… Next month, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra gives the New York premiere of ‘end stages’ at Carnegie Hall…. The Frontier Award … recognizes one [Johns Hopkins University] faculty member each year for five years—the 2017 award is the third one.”
Posted February 6, 2017
