Prize Recipient

The Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University proudly announces commission winners for 2021. After reviewing 574 submissions from 41 countries, the judging panel awarded Texu Kim of Korea/USA, the $12,000 Barlow Prize to compose a major new work for Sinfonietta, to be premiered by Alarm Will Sound, The London Sinfonietta, The Oakland Symphony Orchestra, and The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2023-2024.

Korean-born American composer Texu Kim’s works have been performed by New York Philharmonic, Oregon Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, New World Symphony, National Orchestra of Korea, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Modern,  Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Oakland Symphony and San Diego Symphony, among many others. His music has earned honors and awards from Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Copland House, and SCI/ASCAP Commission Competition. Having served as the Composer-in-Residence of the Korean Symphony Orchestra and having taught at Lewis & Clark College, Portland State University, and Syracuse University, Texu teaches at San Diego State University as an assistant professor of music composition and theory and serves as Artist-of-the-Year at the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra.  He is also the curator of the New Music Symposium hosted by the Korean Cultural Society of Boston.

The judging panel included the Endowment’s Board of Advisors: Neil Thornock, Chen Yi, Ben Sabey, Benjamin Taylor and Miguel Del Aguila; and guest judge Tania León. John Kendall Bailey (Oakland Symphony Orchestra), Paul Finkelstein (St. Paul Chamber Orchestra), Gavin Chuck (Alarm Will Sound), and Paul Silverthorne (London Sinfonietta) represented the performing consortium in selecting the Barlow Prize.