Ted Hearne wins Gaudeamus Prize 2009

The International Gaudeamus Music Week, which took place last week, concluded with the presentation of the Gaudeamus Composition Prize. This prize is € 4,550 and is meant for writing a new composition to be performed in the Gaudeamus Music Week 2010.

The Gaudeamus Prize and the honorable mention were awarded by jury members Huba de Graaff (Netherlands), Anne La Berge (Netherlands), and Akira Nishimura (Japan). For this year’s International Gaudeamus Music Week, which was open to composers under 31, the Gaudeamus Foundation received almost 400 scores from all over the world; the jury subsequently selected fifteen works to compete for the Gaudeamus Prize 2009.

Ted Hearne received the prize for a selection from Katrina Ballads, performed on September 10, 2009 at the Conservatory of Amsterdam by `the ereprijs with Wim Boerman conducting. Hearne himself was vocal soloist in this piece.

An honourable mention went to Toru Nakatani (Japan, 1979) for 16_1/64_1, which was performed on 9 September in the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ  by the New Music Ensemble of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, Jos Zwaanenburg conducting.

During the final concert of the Gaudeamus Music Week the Project Young Composers  (PJC) of the Holland Symfonia took place.  Three prizes were presented; the PJC prize (€ 4,000) went to Matthias Kranebitter and both the PJC Incentive prize and PJC Audience Prize (each € 1,000) went to Janco Verduin.

On Thursday evening, 17 September 2009 at 20:00 p.m. the VPRO/Radio 4 will broadcast a selection from the Gaudeamus Music Week.
The next edition of the International Gaudeamus Music Week will take place in September 2010.

Biographies
Gaudeamus Prize 2009: Ted Hearne
Ted Hearne is a composer, conductor, and performer of new music in New York. Hearne’s music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, The Knights, Third Coast Percussion, and New York City Opera. He is Artistic Director of Yes is a World Ensemble, resident conductor of Red Light New Music, and performs regularly with his band Your Bad Self. His music can be found on New Amsterdam Records. Hearne worked as music director for premieres of David Lang’s Anatomy Theater and Michael Gordon’s Lightning at our Feet. In the fall of 2009 he will be conducting the American premiere of Constantine Koukias’ Prayer Bells with Opera IHOS and the world premiere of a new ballet by Bryan Senti. Ted has received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP Morton Gould Award, and has participated in the 2008 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute and the Volti Choral Arts Laboratory. He has attended both the Manhattan School of Music and the Yale School of Music. Upcoming commissions include a trumpet concerto for Christopher Coletti and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, works for Albany Symphony and DITHER electric guitar quartet, and a 15-minute work for the combined forces of Yale Glee Club and Yale Symphony Orchestra. www.tedhearne.com

Honorable Mention: Toru Nakatani
Toru Nakatani (Japan, 1979) graduated in Human Sciences from the Wako University. In 1996 Nakatani built a microtonal guitar with movable frets. Two years later he began to play with rock groups, jazz orchestras and improvisation groups. He subsequently went to both northern and southern India and Sri Lanka in 2000 and during his stay in New Delhi studied dilruba, a classical bowed Indian instrument. He has built original instruments such as a 19-stringed guitar with jawari, an instrument consisting of resonating strings only, and a guitar based on just intonation. He has had solo performances with these instruments since 2001. In 2008 his piece (16_1/32_1) was awarded the third prize at the Toru Takemitsu Composition competition.