2010 Earplay Donald Aird

Application

2010 WINNER

           San Francisco (June 25, 2010): Earplay announces the winning composition of the 2010 EARPLAY DONALD AIRD MEMORIAL COMPOSERS COMPETITION. Sinews (2008) by Adam Roberts (USA) is the winning composition and carries a $1,000.00 cash prize with a performance during Earplay’s 26th season on May 18, 2011 during the San
Francisco International Arts Festival. The violin solo composition was selected from 118 entries from 15 countries by a panel of composers and performers specializing in contemporary chamber music. The competition honors Donald Aird, Bay Area composer, conductor and Earplay board member actively supported the creation and performance of new works.
The runner-up is String Trio in Two Movements (2004) by Susanne Sorkin (USA) and finalists are: Held in the Weave (2003) by Allen Anderson and Invisible Worlds (2009) by Nicolas Omiccioli (USA).

Sinews, for solo violin, was commissioned by and is dedicated with love to Gabriela Díaz. While composing this piece, I was particularly attracted to the physical associations with the world “sinew,” as in “tendon.” This association transformed me into the composer as sculptor, as I imagined myself working a resistant material into a variety of textures, focusing on the tactile nature of the material. The form is a result of this physical engagement, of pulling, pushing, stretching, resting, of keeping my hands in the dirt all the while.
-- Adam Roberts

 
           

Mary Chun, Earplay conductor, comments: An acrobatic romp for both musician and listener, Sinews elastic and energized writing for solo violin offers a glimpse into the traditions of virtuoso playing with a fresh ear.

A native of Ohio, USA, Adam Roberts (b. 1980) is a composer living in Cambridge, MA, whose music is informed by a variety of impulses, from European and American modernism to minimalism. His music has been recently performed in the U.S. and Europe by ensembles and individuals such as the Arditti Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Le Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Ensemble FA, Garth Knox, and Gabriela Díaz, and at venues and festivals such as Wien Modern (Vienna), Musique Biennale en Scene (Lyons, France), The Stone (NY), the 2009 ISCM World Music Days, and the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (Boston), about which the Boston Globe wrote, “Some favorites were Adam Roberts’s jagged, insistent quartet Pulse Satellite…”

Roberts studied composition at the Eastman School of Music (BM), Harvard University (PhD), and in Vienna at the University for Performing Art and Music (Postgraduate Diploma) with David Liptak, Chaya Czernowin, Augusta Read Thomas, Bernard Rands, Joshua Fineberg, and Julian Anderson, among others. Active as an advocate for new music, he is the Artistic Administrator for the Callithumpian Consort (www.callithumpian.org), and a charter member of the Score Board, a composer advocacy group affiliated with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

Awards include the 2010 André Chevillion-Yvonne Bonnaud Prize and the 2010 Blodgett composition prize; Roberts has also received awards from ASCAP, the Bernard Rogers Prize, the New York Bohemians Prize, a commission from the Hanson Institute for American Music, he is a Le NEM 2008 Forum laureate, and Strange Loops was performed at the 2009 ISCM “Listen to the World” Festival in Göteburg, Sweden.

Past Earplay Donald Aird Memorial Competition winners:

Massimo Lauricella (2001)
Shintaro Imai (2001)
Christophe Bertrand (2002)
João Pedro Oliveira (2003)
Vincent Chee-Yung Ho (2004)
Fredrik Fahlman (2005)
Mitru Escalona-Mijares (2006)
Hèctor Parra (2007)
Nicolas Tzortzis (2008)
Tolga Yayalar (2009)
           
Earplay concerts feature the Earplayers, a group of seven outstanding Bay Area artists who, as a group, have developed a lyrical and ferocious style. Led by Conductor Mary Chun, theEarplayers are: Tod Brody, flute and piccolo; Peter Josheff, clarinet and bass clarinet; Terrie Baune, violin; Ellen Ruth Rose, viola; Thalia Moore, cello, and Karen Rosenak, piano.
           
Founded in 1985 by a consortium of composers and musicians, Earplay is dedicated to the performance of new chamber music offering audiences a unique opportunity to hear eloquent, vivid performances of some of today's finest chamber music.