POLYPHONOS 2008
Winners announced for the
2007-2008 competition
Nathan J. Stumpff (born 1978) is a musician, builder and part-time homesteader from
Freedom, Maine. Nathan recently completed the degree of Master of Music as a Jack
Kent Cooke Foundation Fellowship recipient at Manhattan School of Music, where he
studied with Nils Vigeland and Julia Wolfe. As a Fulbright Scholar, he taught and
worked with composer Mist Þorkelsdóttir at the Listaháskóli Islands (Iceland Academy
of the Arts) in Reykjavík, Iceland. Mr. Stumpff completed his undergraduate degree
with honors at Brown University, where his principal teachers were Gerald Shapiro
and Elaine Bearer.
Recent commissions include those by The Esoterics choir from Seattle, WA, and The
Young Eight String Octet. As 1st Prize winner in the 2006 Washington International
Prize for Composers, Nathan's string quartet The Righteous and the Wicked was premiered
by the Peabody Quartet at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington, DC. Other recent honors include 1st prize in the 2006 Cappella Gloriana
Competition for Composers for his a cappella choral work Four Rumi Songs, and residency
with the California E.A.R. Unit in Arcosanti, AZ, where his work Volkswagen Hobo
for vocalist and sextet was premiered, with the composer as guest vocalist. Nathan's
work Subtleties Lost: prelude and fugue for orchestra was selected for the 2002
Minnesota Orchestra Composer's Institute and Reading Sessions.
An active performer and conductor, Nathan has recently been guest artist with the
Manhattan School of Music Percussion ensemble under Steven Schick, and with the
new music ensemble TACTUS, playing the hammered dulcimer in a performance of George
Crumb's Quest. Recent conducting engagements include numerous premieres by New York
composers, including appearances at the 2007 DUMBO Dance Festival in Brooklyn, NY.
Leonard Enns holds a Masters degree in Choral Conducting (1975) and a PhD in Music
Theory (1982) from Northwestern University, where he was a student of and assistant
to Margaret Hillis, with undergraduate degrees from Canadian Mennonite Bible College
and Wilfrid Laurier University. Conducting, Music Theory, and Composition are his
main teaching areas, and he has directed the College Chapel Choir at Conrad Grebel
University College in Waterloo, Ontario since 1977. The Chapel Choir participates
regularly in College worship, tours extensively, and has recorded five CD's: "When
in our music God is glorified" (1995),"How can I keep from singing" (1997), "Touched
by Grace" (2000), "Mysterium" (2002) and "Then & Now" (2005). Enns is also the founding
director of the DaCapo Chamber Choir, established in 1998. The choir was a finalist
in the 2004 CBC Radio Competition for Amateur Choirs, and released its first CD,
Still, in the spring of 2004.
Enns is active as a composer with an extensive list of compositions. His choral
works are performed regularly by school, church and community choirs, as well as
by professional chamber choirs such as the Elora Festival Singers and the Winnipeg
Singers. Recent performances of his music included his choral symphony, "The Silver
Cord", in February 2004 by the KW Philharmonic Choir and the KW Symphony. His "Te
Deum Brevis" was premiered by the Winnipeg Singers in Kyota, Japan in the summer
of 2005, as part of the 7th World Symposium on Choral Music.
Connecticut native Scott Perkins (b. 1980) is active as a composer, performer, theorist,
conductor, and teacher of music. He holds degrees from Boston University and the
Eastman School of Music in composition and music theory.
Scott's works have been performed throughout North America and Europe, and have
won major prizes, including a BMI Student Composer Award. An avid enthusiast of
early and contemporary vocal music, Scott has enjoyed working with a long list of
composers and giving the first performances of works as both a tenor and a conductor.
He has appeared in recital and as a concert soloist in the United States, England,
Mexico, Scotland, and Norway.
As a researcher, Scott is particularly interested in compositional process in the
music of Benjamin Britten and issues in the pedagogy of music theory. In 2006, on
a grant from Eastman, he conducted sketch studies at the Britten-Pears Library in
Aldeburgh, England, for a second consecutive summer.
Scott is currently pursuing a Ph.D. with a double-concentration in Composition and
Theory at Eastman, where he studies with Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. He teaches undergraduates
at Eastman, is engaged regularly as a soloist and a conductor, performs weekly as
a member of the Christ Church Schola Cantorum, of which he is also assistant director,
and is president of Ossia, Eastman's student-run new music ensemble.
The Esoterics is pleased to announce the winners
of choral composition competition, POLYPHONOS for 2008. This year, 61 composers
from ages 19 to 75, from such far-flung locales as Poland, Brazil, and Scotland
submitted scores to this competition. Each composer was completely anonymous to
the panel of three judges.
Each winner will receive US$1,000 and a commission for a 5-minute new work that
will be premiered in The Esoterics’ fifteen anniversary concert entitled QUINDECIMA in mid-April 2008.
The winners will also receive travel and lodging to the premiere of their work next
year. The Esoterics extends its sincerest thanks to all of you who applied to this
competition.
The decisions were difficult, but The Esoterics have decided upon these awards:
POLYPHONOS 2008 AMERICAN COMPOSER:
Nathan J. Stumpff - Freedom, Maine
POLYPHONOS 2008 INTERNATIONAL COMPOSER:
Leonard J. Enns - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
POLYPHONOS 2008 YOUNG COMPOSER:
Scott Perkins - Rochester, New York