(Two additional honorees ware added to this listing September 1 and September 5, 2021—DK)
The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts, David (Volosin) Katz, chief judge, is honored to announce the winners, runners-up, citation recipients and honorable mention of
The American Prize in Composition, 2021, in the opera/theater/film/dance divisions. Congratulations!
Complete listings of finalists and semi-finalists in The American Prize competitions may be found elsewhere on this blog. Please use the chronological tool in the right-hand column to find specific results.
Please make us aware of any misprints: theamericanprize@gmail.com
The American Prize in Composition—opera/theater/film/dance (professional division), 2021
The American Prize winner: Dave Ragland
Nashville TN
One Vote Won
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| Dave Ragland |
Dave Ragland (daveragland.com) is a two-time EMMY nominated composer, vocalist, pianist, and conductor. Hailed as “über-talented” by The Nashville Scene, Dave received an EMMY nomination for composition and music direction for Frist Art Museum’s “NICK CAVE FEAT. NASHVILLE”. Dave Ragland received a second EMMY nomination for his musical collaboration with Nashville Ballet’s Gerald Watson and violinist Chandler Custer. Dave was nominated for Best Director of a Musical by First Night Honors for Wildcard Productions’ run of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill".
Dave, in collaboration with Inversion Vocal Ensemble, shackled feet DANCE, and Diaspora Orchestra, is slated to debut his opera “STEAL AWAY” as Artist-in-Residence for OZ Arts in its upcoming season. Additional compositional credits including Nashville Symphony, Nashville Ballet, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Intersection Contemporary Ensemble, along with GRAMMY-nominated ALIAS Chamber Ensemble this season. For the past two seasons, Dave has served as Chorusmaster for Nashville Symphony's "Let Freedom Sing". Dave Ragland is the 2020 GRADY-RAYAM Negro Spirituals Foundation Composer-in-Residence.
The American Prize 2nd Place:
Steven Mark Kohn
Chagrin Falls OH
The Trial of Susan B. Anthony
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| Steven Mark Kohn |
Composer/librettist Steven Mark Kohn has creating lyrics for 5 musicals including The Quiltmaker’s Gift (Dramatic Publishing), and libretti for three operas including Riders of the Purple Sage (world premier by Arizona Opera in 2017). Steven has written many art songs (publ. by EC Schirmer) including two historical song cycles; Mary Chesnut; a Civil War Diary and The Trial of Susan B. Anthony. His American Folk Song arrangements were premiered in Carnegie Hall in 2008 and have since been performed around the world by hundreds of artists. Steven has also written music for award-winning children’s films for ABC, PBS and the Disney Channel. He has composed and arranged commercial music for Wheaties, Arby’s, Volvo, Matrix and many others and has created the music for over 60 titles in the guided imagery series Health Journeys, which has sold over two million copies worldwide. For the Cleveland Institute of Music, he designed and built the Electronic Music Studio, wrote the course textbook and served on the composition faculty for 21 years. www.stevenmarkkohn.com
The American Prize 3rd Place:
Judith Lynn Stillman
Providence RI
Essential Business
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| Judith Lynn Stillman |
Judith Lynn Stillman holds Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees from Juilliard. Hailed by Wynton Marsalis as “remarkable, a consummate artist." Winner 18 competitions, Pell Award in the Arts; Artist-in-Residence and Professor at Rhode Island College, and an internationally-renowned composer, pianist, choral conductor.
Stillman's compositions have received extensive national media coverage: "breathtaking masterpiece," "Stillman's true genius shines... she reaches for the stars and succeeds brilliantly...transports us through darkness toward life and growth," "startlingly beautiful musical score."
World premieres at Lincoln Center, highlights include Marlboro, Tanglewood, Grammy's honoring Rostropovich, Artist-in-Residence in China, Russia, Czech Republic, Beijing's Central Conservatory, Prague Conservatory, Royal Conservatoire. Collaborators include Wynton Marsalis (duo album, SONY), Mark O'Connor, Richard Stoltzman, Herbie Hancock (BOSE commercial), members of NY Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Borromeo, Cassatt, Shanghai Quartets.
As composer-filmmaker, winner Best Score, Best Multimedia Film, Best Music Video, Audience Choice Awards in international film festivals in NYC, LA and in the UK. Essential Business was the First Prize winner of the OperaVision/Opera Europa #Opera Harmony International Quarantine Competition in 2020. Stillman was named an Honored Artist of The American Prize. https://judithlynnstillman.com
The American Prize Judges' Citation: "Special Achievement in creating music for the films of Georges Melies."
Kyle Simpson
Washington PA
Trip to the Moon
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| Kyle Simpson |
Kyle Simpson D.M.A is a Pittsburgh-based composer and trumpet player that seeks to fuse the worlds of jazz and contemporary classical music. He has performed professionally with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and has shared the stage with jazz artists such as Lew Soloff and Paquito D'Rivera. Aside from his jazz explorations, Simpson has written numerous works for the concert stage, including works both large and small. Other works have been performed in festivals in Italy, Croatia, France, Greece, and the United States.
Simpson has also made forays in the film industry by scoring music for Pittsburgh directors including Tom Kurlander and John Cantine. He just finished scoring a feature-length film for Black Deer Pictures entitled Every Night and Every Day (dir. Thomas Zoeschg) He is currently working with filmmaker Bruce Spiegel in scoring a new documentary about the steel industry in Pittsburgh. He recently won acclaim for his scoring work in Thessaloniki, Greece at the Fusion Film Scoring Workshop. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Composition at West Virginia University.
The American Prize Judges' Citation: "Unique drama without words for five brass and no voices"
William Vollinger
Woodcliff Lake NJ
Now Shall My Head Be Lifted Up Above my Enemies
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| William Vollinger |
William Vollinger’s music is described as “3D: different, direct and deep.” His music has been published by Abingdon, API, Heritage, Kjos, Lawson-Gould, and Laurendale. Five works were editor's choices in the J.W. Pepper Catalogue. Recent premieres included Jackson State Symphony, San Francisco Choral Artists, Ridgewood Concert Band, Hamilton-Fairfield Symphony, Garden State Philharmonic, Classic V Winds, and Colts Neck Community Band.. Several of his works have been nominated for or given awards by The American Prize. SDG!
The American Prize Judges' Citation: "Special Achievement in music for animation"
Hsin-Hua Wang
Los Angeles CA
Bacchus
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| Hsin-Hua Wang |
Hsin-Hua Wang is an emerging composer whose breadth of work spans film scoring, musical, theater and chamber music. She has composed and orchestrated for short films and animation awarded worldwide- United States, Portugal, Czech Republic, India and Taiwan. This year, she was ranked eighth at “Sound of Silences- A Competition of Musical Composition for The Moving Image”, held by Edison Studio, the Cineteca di Bologna (Film Archive of Bologna) and the Romaeuropa Festival 2020.She received her master’s in Music Theory and Composition at California Institute of The Arts. Hsin-Hua’s chamber works were performed and recorded by EMMY award-winning and Los Angeles Times-highlighted musicians. In 2017 Hsin-Hua joined Balinese gamelan ensemble Burat Wangi, led by artistic director I. Nyoman Wenten. She has performed with the ensemble in numerous events such as the premiere of Academy Award-nominated documentary film, “BALI: Beats of Paradise” in 2018.
The American Prize Judges' Citation: "Special Achievement in music for a documentary film"
Amir Zaheri & Rebecca Salzer
Tuscaloosa AL
May I Take Your Picture?
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| Amir Zaheri |
Dr. Amir Zaheri (amirzaheri.com) is Associate Professor of Composition and Head of Composition at the University of Alabama. Zaheri is the recipient of numerous commissions, prizes, performances, awards, and publications at regional, national, and international levels. He held the distinguished Ben and Coy Narramore Fellowship at the University of Alabama, where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition in 2013. Concurrently, he completed the Doctoral Minor in Musicology; his research focuses on the Music of Nazi Germany. Matters related to social justice, especially forced migration, are of particular interest. His compositional interests are diverse and include classical chamber and large ensemble concert music, film music, music for screen dance, music for live dance, electronic music, popular music, multimedia art, opera, and musical theatre. Dr. Zaheri holds the Master of Music degree in Music Composition from Georgia State University; undergraduate studies in music were completed at Western Kentucky University.
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| Rebecca Salzer |
Rebecca Salzer, Associate Professor of Dance and Director of the Collaborative Arts Research Initiative at The University of Alabama, is an intermedia dance artist and educator. Her work for the stage has been seen in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, where she directed Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater for a decade. Her award-winning films and videos have been programmed in national and international venues and on public affiliate television stations KQED, KPBS, and WTTW. Salzer is a Jacob K. Javits Fellow. She holds a B.A. in Humanities from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Dance Theatre from the University of California, San Diego. Ms. Salzer also serves as Project Director for the Dancing Digital Project, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (dancingdigital.org), which works toward creating and facilitating more centralized, accessible, equitable, and forward-thinking dance resources online.
"May I Take Your Picture?" is part of a series of collaborative works by Dr. Zaheri and filmmaker and choreographer Rebecca Salzer created in response to the global crisis of forcibly displaced people. In May, 2016, Zaheri and Salzer traveled to Greece, where they visited the unofficial refugee camp at Idomeni. 12,000-15,000 refugees were trapped on the border of Macedonia, where they had been stopped on their intended journey into northern Europe. Three days after this footage was recorded, riots broke out in the unofficial refugee camp, and police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Ten days after this footage was recorded, police evacuated and bulldozed the camp, relocating fewer than half of its residents to official government camps. The other residents of this temporary camp fled into the neighboring fields to evade government detention. "May I Take Your Picture" documents one moment, one place, and a particular chapter in the plight of refugees in Greece that has now passed.
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Alla Pavlova
Huntington NY
Thumbelina (ballet)
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| Alla Pavlova |
Alla Pavlova was born in Ukraine. In 1975 she received her Bachelor’s Degree at the Ippolitov–Ivanov Music Institute. In 1983 she received her Master’s Degree at the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow.
Alla Pavlova has written many compositions for orchestra, including ten symphonies and the ballets Thumbelina, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, and Sulamith, based on the Alexandre Kuprin story about the love of King Solomon for Sulamith, a servant in his vineyard. She is also the composer of numerous instrumental and vocal works that have been performed in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand.
Her works combine classical, romantic and contemporary styles, and sometimes include elements from gospel and popular genres.
Recordings are available on the Naxos and Albany labels and her music is regularly broadcast internationally. Her website is at http://www.allapavlova.com/. Since 1990, Alla has lived in New York.
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Dawn Lenore Sonntag
Olympia WA
Verlorene Heimat ( Lost Homeland)
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| Dawn Sonntag |
Dawn Lenore Sonntag’s works, which include opera, art song, and chamber, choral, keyboard, and orchestral music, have been performed across the U.S. and in Germany, Norway, and France. Her operas, which include settings of her own librettos and delve deeply into political, cultural, and social issues, connect audiences with the lived history of real-life characters and have been performed by the Cleveland Opera Theater, the Hartford Opera Theater, ContempOpera Cleveland, and at the Opera from Scratch festival and Hartford Women Composers festival. She has been the recipient of numerous composition and performance awards and fellowships, including the Ohio Music Teachers Association Composer of the Year award; an American-Scandinavian Foundation fellowship; and a 2019 Swedish Government International Cultural Exchange Grant. She resides in Olympia, Washington, and is on the composition faculty at Pacific Lutheran University. She received her D.M.A. at the University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Alex Lubet.
The American Prize in Composition—opera/theater/film/dance (student division), 2021
The American Prize winner:
Nathaniel Trost
Tuscaloosa AL
Like It or Not, It's Going to Happen
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| Nathaniel Trust |
Nathaniel Trost is a Canadian-American composer and mixed media artist from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Nathaniel has had sound art works and acoustic compositions performed around the United States and Canada. Nathaniel's works often incorporate live audio processing with acoustic instruments or ambient sound and sculpture. Recent performances include the sound sculpture Wind Eye at Georgia Tech’s 2020 Music Art and Technology Fair, Scarecrow/Jesus at Birmingham’s East Village Arts gallery, and Red, Blue, Grey for mixed ensemble performed by Ensemble Paramirabo at the Domaine Forget Summer Music Academy in Charlevoix, Quebec. Nathaniel has attended masterclasses with players of the Linea Ensemble, the Mivos quartet and composers Laurie Radford, Chaya Czernowin, and George Lewis. He is completing a bachelors of music at the University of Alabama where he studies with Amir Zaheri.
The American Prize 2nd Place:
Daniel Ruffing
Norwalk OH
Here, Run
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| Daniel Ruffing |
Daniel Ruffing is a Senior Arts Management & Entrepreneurship major at Baldwin Wallace University, and his music has had millions of views. His songs "I Want To Be Tall" and "Aries and Virgo'' were featured on popular YouTuber Jenna Marbles' channel. More recently, Daniel's work has seen immense success on the popular app TikTok. Daniel’s work has been produced on stage twice in concert form at the esteemed Feinstein’s 54/Below in New York City. Daniel was an Honorable Mention in the 34th Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, as well as a Semi-Finalist in the 2016 International Songwriting Competition. In February 2020, Daniel produced his first concert, titled "He's Lost His Marbles." His musical Life Song was accepted for development in December 2020 at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony.
The American Prize 3rd Place:
Steven Crino
Moorestown NJ
Tomb of Beauty
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| Steven Crino |
A composer primarily interested in lyricism, simplicity, and harmonic color, Steven Crino’s compositions have been performed throughout the East Coast, and abroad in Paris. He has worked with ensembles and soloists, such as Peter Sheppard Skaerved, The Peabody Symphony Orchestra, and The Temple University Singers. Steven is the winner of the 3td International A.D. Kastalsky Choral Music Competition and The Composers Concordance Composition Competition. He was also awarded 3rd place in the Sparks & Wiry Cries NYC 2018 Song Slam, and was selected for the Baltimore Choral Arts Society’s Student Composer Project. His music has been reviewed by the Epoch Times, and the Philadelphia City Paper; and was featured on WBJC, 91.5’s ‘Composer of the Month’ Podcast series. Steven is currently a doctoral student and graduate assistant at the Peabody Conservatory, where he also completed his Master’s Degree in both Composition and Music Theory Pedagogy, studying with Michael Hersch and Kevin Puts.
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Congratulations!
The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts, David (Volosin) Katz, founder and chief judge, is the nation's most comprehensive series of contests in the musical and theater arts. The American Prize is nonprofit, unique in scope and structure, and is designed to evaluate, recognize and reward the best performers, composers, conductors, ensembles and directors in the United States, at professional, college/university, community and school levels, based on submitted recordings. There is no live competition.
Founded in 2010 and now celebrating its eleventh year, The American Prize has awarded nearly $100,000 in prizes in all categories since its creation. Thousands of artists representing all fifty states have derived benefit from their participation in the contests of The American Prize.
The American Prize will accept applications for the 2021-22 contest season through September 14, 2021 or with extension request. www.theamericanprize.org
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