Winners: COMPOSERS (instrumental chamber music—professional division), 2021
The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts, David (Volosin) Katz, chief judge, is honored to announce the winners, runners-up, citation recipient and honorable mentions of The American Prize in Composition, 2021, in instrumental chamber music, professional division. Congratulations!
(Results. in the student division have been slightly delayed. We anticipate making the announcement on Friday, September 17th at 5pm.)
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—Instrumental Chamber Music (professional division), 2021
The American Prize winner:
Nickitas Demos
Atlanta GA
Frontlash
Nickitas Demos (b. 1962) holds a DMA in Composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music where he studied with Donald Erb (1927-2008). Commissions include works for the Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Ballet, Nashville Chamber Orchestra and the National Association of College Wind & Percussion Instructors. Awards include: Finalist in the American Prize in Composition-Orchestra (2016); Semi-Finalist in the 2015 Rapido! Composition Competition; MacDowell Fellowship (2012); Grand Prize: 2004 Millennium Arts International Competition for Composers; Grand Prize: 2005 Holyoke Civic Symphony Composition Competition; and 20 ASCAP Awards. His music is self-published through Sylvan Lake Press (ASCAP) and recorded on Ablaze Records, Albany Records, Capstone Records and MSR Classics. Demos is Director of the Georgia State University School of Music, Director of the Center for Collaboration & Innovation in the Arts, Artistic Director of the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble, and Co-Director of the SoundNOW Contemporary Music Festival. For more information, please visit: http://nickitasdemos.com.
Nickitas Demos
The American Prize 2nd Place (there was a tie):
Angelique Poteat
Seattle WA
Her Story of a Soldier
The music of Angelique Poteat has been described as “engaging, restless” (The New York Times) and “serious and nicely crafted” (American Record Guide) and has been recorded and performed on four continents by ensembles including the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Saratoga Orchestra, Emerald City Music, CernaBella, and the Enso Quartet. Her genre-crossing music has programmed alongside both classical and popular music legends, including Mike McCready, Chris Cornell, and members of Mad Season.
Angelique Poteat
Poteat earned degrees in Composition at Rice University and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and is currently the Director of the Seattle Symphony Young Composers' Workshop. She has also been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the 2015 American Prize in Composition for her orchestral piece Beyond Much Difference; as well as grants from Seattle 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the Allied Arts Foundation; and was a 2015 CityArtist from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.
The American Prize 2nd Place (there was a tie):
Robert Scott Thompson
Roswell GA
Ninth Wave
Robert Scott Thompson is a composer of instrumental and electroacoustic music and is Professor of Music Composition at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He is the recipient of several prizes and distinctions for his music including the First Prize in the 2003 Musica Nova Competition, the First Prize in the 2001 Pierre Schaeffer Competition and awards in the Concorso Internazionale “Luigi Russolo”, Irino Prize Foundation Competition for Chamber Music, and Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges - including the Commande Commission 2007. His work has been presented in festivals such as the Koriyama Bienalle, Helsinki Bienalle, Sound, Présences, Synthèse, Sonorities, ICMC, SEAMUS and the Cabrillo Music Festival, and broadcast on Radio France, BBC, NHK, ABC, WDR, and NPR, among others. His music is published on numerous solo recordings and compilations by EMF Media, Neuma, Drimala, Capstone, Centaur, Hypnos, Oasis/Mirage, Groove, Lens, Space for Music, Zero Music, Twelfth Root, Relaxed Machinery, Aatma, Acousmatique and Aucourant record labels, among others, and in print by American Composers Edition.
Robert Scott Thompson
The American Prize 3rd Place (there was a three-way tie):
Devin Arrington
Pittsburgh PA
Heavenward: Meditation for solo violin
Performers of Arrington's music include the Grammy-nominated string quartet Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Westmoreland and Edgewood Symphonies, Ohio Northern University Orchestra, Carnegie Mellon Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Girls Choir. An advocate for the healing power of music, in 2010 Mr. Arrington created Musicians With A Mission (MWAM) to “bring more of Pittsburgh's talented musicians into local healthcare settings.” After coordinating over a hundred performances each year at local healthcare facilities, Pittsburgh’s NPR station featured MWAM in its 2018 segment “90 Neighborhoods, 90 Good Stories.” Mr. Arrington holds a B.A. degree in Music from Middlebury College (summa cum laude) and M.M. degree in Music Composition from Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Arrington teaches violin and composition both privately in Morningside and at Duquesne University's City Music Center. More info at www.devinarrington.com
Devin Arrington
The American Prize 3rd Place (there was a three-way tie):
Bruce Babcock
Pasadena CA
Alternative Facts
Applauded by Aaron Copland, inspired by Desmond Tutu, and mentored by Hugo Friedhofer and Earle Hagen, Bruce Babcock has spent his working life composing music for the musicians of Los Angeles. He holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in composition from California State University, Northridge. His music has been performed and/or recorded by Grammy winners Gloria Cheng, Hila Plitmann, and The Crossing, in addition to Calvin Simmons, the Donald Brinegar Singers, Juliana Gondek, the Debussy Trio, the Antioch Ensemble, Pacific Serenades, the Artea Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco, the Kansas City Symphony, the Haga Motettkör of Göteborg, Sweden, the Space Coast Symphony, the Altius Quartet, the Sirius Quartet, the Armadillo Quartet, Lindsey Goodman, Ovidiu Marinescu, Anna Kislitsyna, Armen Ksajikian, Robert Thies, Doug Masek, James Walker, and Jonathan Mack. His a cappella piece, All Unto Me, dedicated to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was performed with the Archbishop in attendance in 2011. 
Bruce Babcock
The American Prize 3rd Place (there was a three-way tie):
Timothy Lee Miller
Mahwah NJ
Something More
Timothy Lee Miller is an American composer, arranger, and orchestrator writing contemporary concert music for chamber ensembles, orchestra, wind ensemble, and voice, as well as jazz, film, and video game music. He has earned degrees from the University of Tennessee, the University of Miami, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. His principle composition teachers have been John Anthony Lennon, James Progris, Tamar Diesendruck, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Andy Jaffe, John Fitz Rogers, and Roger Zahab. He has received numerous commissions and awards, including several ASCAP awards. His music has been performed throughout the US, Europe, Russia, and China. His music is recorded on ERMMedia, Navona Records, Ansonica Records, and Phoenix Classics. He lives in Mahwah, New Jersey with his wife and son. 
Timothy Lee Miller
The American Prize Special Judges’ Citation for "Unique Creativity and Aural Vision":
Kotoka Suzuki
Chicago IL
Orison
Kotoka Suzuki is a composer focusing on both multimedia and instrumental practices. Her work reflects on life, breath and wind, and often conceives of sounds as a physical form manipulated through the sculptural practice of composition. Her work has been featured internationally by performers such as Arditti String Quartet, eighth blackbird, Pacifica Quartet, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Continuum, and Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra (Leipzig), at numerous venues and broadcasts such as Deutchland Radio, BBC Radio3, ISCM World Music Days, The Stone, ZKM Media Museum, and MATA. Among the awards she has received include DAAD Berlin Artists in Residence Program, First Prize in Bourges Multimedia, First Prize in Musica Nova, New Music USA, Robert Fleming Prize (Canada Council for the Arts), and Howard Foundation Fellowship. Suzuki is an Associate Professor in Music & Culture at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Kotoka Suzuki
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Jeffrey Bowen
Seattle WA
What Will Sound (was already sound)
Jeffrey Bowen is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music, whose works have been performed by Pascal Gallois, Beta Collide, Ensemble DissonArt, and the Luminosity Orchestra, among other ensembles. In 2013 his orchestral work Stalasso was chosen by conductor Ludovic Morlot for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Works program, and he has recently presented work at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival and the International Computer Music Conference. In 2019 he received a Jack Straw Artist Support grant to record his piece for the Harry Partch Instruments, Where All That’s Solid Melts Into Air, and his work What Will Sound (was already sound), for violin and electronics, will be released by Parma Records in 2020. He is currently based in Seattle, where he teaches at Seattle University and is co-director of the Inverted Space Ensemble. He recently completed a DMA in composition at UW under Joël-François Durand.
Jeffrey Bowen
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Timothy Brown
Lewisville TX
Camp Speicher
Award-winning American composer Timothy Brown is one of the most popular and widely performed composers for the piano of his generation. He has been influenced greatly by the Italian composer Ennio Morricone, and Timothy’s music is noted for its “immediate emotional impact” and its roots in the neo-romantic style of music composition. He has embedded traditional formal structural elements in his wide array of compositions which include orchestral, ballet, choral, chamber works, and over three hundred publications written specifically for the piano for “pedagogical purposes.”
Timothy Brown
He was born in Middletown, Ohio and his early piano and music theory studies were with Rebecca Shoup Willhide. His undergraduate studies were at Bowling Green State University, and he later received his master’s degree from the University of North Texas where he studied piano with Adam Wodnicki and music composition with Newel Kay Brown. Later he was a recipient of a research fellowship from the Royal Holloway, University of London, where he pursued his post-graduate studies in music composition and orchestration with the English composer, Brian Lock. He later continued his research at the well-known Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Foundation in Rome, Italy.
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Curt Cacioppo
Orleans MA
Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano
Curt Cacioppo (b. 1951, Ravenna, OH) has composed for the Chicago Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony orchestras, the Emerson Quartet, and hosts of other top ensembles and soloists worldwide. He received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Howard Foundation Fellowship, among numerous other prizes. His CD Ritornello with the Quartetto di Venezia on Navona earned a Grammy nomination. Cacioppo’s principal mentors were Leon Kirchner and George Rochberg. A formidable pianist, he studied with Ruth Laredo and performed in masterclasses with Arther Loesser and John Browning, among others. He holds degrees from Harvard University, NYU and Kent State. A chaired professor at Haverford College, and prior a junior professor at Harvard, serving there also as Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music, Cacioppo concluded his academic career in 2020 to pursue creative and pianistic activities exclusively. For more information, visit http://www.curtcacioppo.com/.
Curt Cacioppo
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Miguel Roig-Francoli
Cincinnati OH
Six preludes after Chopin
Miguel A. Roig-Francolí, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, has been recognized internationally for his work as a music theorist, composer, musicologist, and pedagogue. Winner of the 2016 American Prize in Composition (band/wind ensemble division), his compositions have been widely performed in Spain, England, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. He is the author of Harmony in Context and Understanding Post-Tonal Music, as well as over twenty articles and reviews in leading scholarly journals in the USA and Europe. Among his many honors are first prize at the National Composition Competition of the Spanish Jeunesses Musicales (1981) and second prize at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (Paris, 1982); and the University of Cincinnati’s A.B. "Dolly" Cohen Award for Excellence in Teaching (2007) and George Rieveschl Jr. Award for Creative and/or Scholarly Works (2009).
Miguel Roig-Francoli
The American Prize Finalist Honorable Mention:
Benjamin Shorstein
Jacksonville FL
Sonata for Piano
Benjamin Shorstein is a composer and classically trained percussionist based in Jacksonville, FL. He has performed, composed, and recorded a variety of music, including classical and jazz music for soloists and small ensembles. Mr. Shorstein’s original music and arrangements have been performed for the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), recorded for film, and featured in numerous concerts and recordings. He was commissioned by Madre Vaca to arrange Franz Schubert’s hauntingly beautiful song cycle, Winterreise, for jazz octet. Mr. Shorstein has had the pleasure of performing on stage with many artists including Chick Corea, Mark O’Connor, Jamison Ross, Terry Plumeri, Alphonso Horne, Scott Wilson, Juan Rollan, Rebecca Shorstein, Steve Cohn Trio, Thomas Milovac, Jarrett Carter, Jonah Pierre, Steve Strawley, Lance Reed, Milan Algood, Abigail Gruber, Mike Perez, and the Andre Gruber Trio.
Benjamin Shorstein
The American Prize in Composition—Instrumental Chamber Music (student division), 2021
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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, with extensions by email request. www.theamericanprize.org
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