2011 Education Grant Report

2011 marked the establishment of the Milton A. Barlow Scholarship and the Barlow Student Composition Award—two important, ongoing scholarships/awards presented to the most outstanding composition student in our program at Brigham Young University. The Milton A. Barlow Scholarship is a one-year, full-tuition scholarship, and the Barlow Student Composition Award is a $500 cash award toward a commission to write a new work for one of BYU’s premiere large ensembles. While these awards may go to separate individuals, in 2011 they
both went to masters composition student Curtis Smith. Curtis’s Symphony No. 1: The Six String was premiered by the BYU Chamber Orchestra
on March 27, 2012, and Curtis graduated with
his MM in Music Composition in April 2012. 
This scholarship and award will undoubtedly
help him to enter a competitive doctoral program in the near future. 

August 2011 marked the seventh year BYU student interns have assisted with the annual Barlow Prize and Commissions judging. Four of our students—Esther Megargel, Michael Wahlquist, Igor Marques, and Kyle Shaw—helped prepare the applicants’ files and assisted the judges in the summer meetings.

A large share of the Education Grant goes toward student scholarships, assistantships, internships, travel awards, festivals and performances fees,
and support for guest composers and performers that work directly with students. Students receiving scholarships included Zach Van Houten, Esther Megargel, Michael Wahlquist, and Joseph Sowa.

Barlow funds also supported performances of student compositions at national and international festivals like the premiere of
Joseph Sowa’s piece A Field Guide to Natural History, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, at the International Society of Bassists conference at San Francisco State University in June 2011.  Composition students Sarah Porter and Todd Kitchen attended performances of their electronic compositions at the 2011 Conference of SEAMUS (the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US)
at the University of Miami.

In January, composer Mark Applebaum (Stanford University) visited campus to perform on the Utah Crosstalk Concert of electronic music, to present his music to our composition seminar, and teach composition lessons to our students.

Barlow funds helped support a residency by the New York Piano Trio who workshopped composed works by the. Composition students during their February visit. Curtis Macomber, the group’s violinist, presented to our composition seminar on Augusta Read Thomas’s work, Dream Catcher, for solo violin, and the trio presented a superb evening concert.

Performers Kenneth Long (clarinet) and Matthew Coley (percussion/dulcimer) presented workshops to composition students, read through student compositions, and recorded faculty compositions while on campus.  Mathew Coley presented the exciting Micro Concerto for percussion and chamber ensemble, accompanied by an ensemble of advanced BYU student performers in the BYU Group for New Music.

Composers John Butcher (UK) and Chaya Czernowin (Harvard University) presented Barlow Lectures to the School of Music and worked closely with composition students in lessons and master classes.  Also, the 2011 budget provided support for a Winter 2012 guest composer/performer, William O. Smith.

Faculty support has also been generous. Dr. Neil Thornock recorded projects of new works for solo clarinet and solo hammered dulcimer.  Dr. Christian Asplund received support to release two CD’s: Org and Lalage, which feature solo organ works and improvised works for sampler and vocalist, respectively.   And lastly, Dr. Asplund and Dr. Steven Ricks performed new works for trombone and piano at the International Society of Improvised Music (ISIM) Conference at William Paterson University.