Prize Recipient

2023 Barlow Prize Winner

The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University proudly announces commission winners for 2023.

After reviewing 454 submissions from 46 countries, the judging panel awarded Viet Cuong of Las Vegas, Nevada, the $15,000 Barlow Prize to compose a major new work for solo guitar (nylon string), to be premiered by a consortium of international performers: Ahmed Dickinson, Martha Masters, Meng Su, and Xuefei Yang.

Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the music of American composer Viet Cuong has been performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Atlanta Symphony, Sandbox Percussion, Albany Symphony, PRISM Quartet, and Dallas Winds, among many others. He is currently the California Symphony’s Young American Composer-in-Residence, the Pacific Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence, and serves as Assistant Professor of Music Composition at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Cuong holds degrees from Princeton University (MFA/PhD), the Curtis Institute of Music (AD), and Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM).

2023 Barlow Prize Honorable Mention

The judges also granted Luis Ramírez of Toronto, Canada, the distinction of Honorable Mention.

Born and raised in Aguascalientes, Mexico, Luis Ramírez (b.1992) is a Mexican-Canadian composer currently pursuing a doctorate with Randolph Peters at York University. He has received commissions from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Trio Kalysta, and GroundSwell, was chosen as a composer fellow for the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in 2020, and he was recently commissioned for a second time by the TSO as part of their 2022/23 NextGen Composers program.