Press Releases

Contact:

Composers and Schools in Concert
Lisa Oman, Executive Director
press@composersandschools.com

High School Senior Nick Main wins scholarship and receives mentorship by professional composer Kurt Rhode endorsed by local businesses Sheet Music Plus Pres and SF State School of Music

San Francisco, CA – Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC) has announced the winner of its 2018 Victor Salvo Music Composition Scholarship for high school students. Nick Main of Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts took this year’s composition prize with his submission, “Ora.”  Nick will receive 5 hours of mentoring sessions with professional composer Kurt Rohde, and the experience will culminate in a Left Coast Chamber Ensemble reading of the musical piece he develops during his mentorship. The ensemble reading takes place on June 14, 2018 at SF State School of Music. The reading is not open to the public.

A senior, Nick studies classical voice under Samuel Faustine and has performed with ensembles and organizations such as the San Francisco Youth Chamber Orchestra and Lamplighters Musical Theatre. In addition to his vocal studies, Nick also studies music composition with Matthew Cmiel and Dan Becker through Crowden’s John Adams’ Young Composers’ Program; furthermore, he studied at the Walden School’s 2016 Young Musicians Program. His music has been performed by the Friction Quartet, Wild Rumpus, and members of Ensemble Dal Niente, as well as Formerly Known as Classical, a student new music ensemble which he directs. Nick began singing classically at age eleven with the Pacific Boychoir and began training as a soloist at fourteen under Marcelle Dronkers.

The CSIC award commemorates Victor Salvo, a much-admired Sacramento-area music teacher and member of the CSIC Board of Directors, who passed away in 2014. The initial scholarship fund was created shortly thereafter from initial generous funding by Mr. Salvo’s family and friends. The ongoing scholarship funds are now sponsored in part by SMP Press at Sheet Music Plus, SF State School of Music, and through the generous support of Evelyn Nussenbaum and Fred Vogelstein. Northern California high school students who submit original compositions demonstrating a unique musical voice and potential to benefit from professional composition mentorship are encouraged to compete for this annual scholarship.

The next scholarship awarding period has not yet opened, but check back often to Composers and Schools in Concert at www.composersandschools.com for competition details, to learn more about the organization and its work pairing professional composers with high school music programs, and to follow Nick’s musical composition progress.

Violist and composer Kurt Rohde is a recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship, the Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize, and an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as numerous commission awards. Mr. Rohde is a graduate of the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook, and has attended the Willapa Bay, Montalvo, Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Programs.  He is a Professor of Music Composition and Theory at the University of California, Davis. He serves as Artistic Advisor for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.

Founded in 1992, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble forges connections through stirring presentations of chamber music across the Bay Area. By pairing new works with traditional masterpieces. The ensemble’s fourteen musicians, many of whom have played together since the 1980s, perform in different combinations, using strings, winds, guitar and piano to present a wide range of repertoire.

Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC) is a nationwide nonprofit organization governed by a Bay Area-based Board of Directors. It is the only organization in the United States dedicated to providing high school students with an educational experience in the professional field of music composition through composer commissions, workshops, and a contemporary score library for young performers. Learn more about CSIC at www.composersandschools.com

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Composers and Schools in Concert

Composers and Schools in Concert is a nationwide nonprofit organization that supports music education and the creation and performance of contemporary music. We aim to expose and engage high school students in the concepts, techniques, and skills underlying contemporary music composition. We achieve this through three programs: composer commissions, composer workshops and a score library geared for young performers. We provide an online member directory to connect professional composers and youth music educators; we offer competitive funding for professional composers; and we provide progressive music education for young musicians.

Kurt Rohde

The music of composer and violist Kurt Rohde has been described as being “filled with exhilaration and dread. It’s a mirror of our times, It’s dark music, lit up by peckings, clackings, snaps and slides. It sounds eerie, but lyrical; sustained, but skittish; free-form, yet dancing.” (San Jose Mercury News, Richard Scheinin.)

Violist and composer Kurt Rohde is a recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize, and a 2015 Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has received commission awards from New Music USA – Commissioning Music/USA, the NEA, and the Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, and Koussevitzky Foundations. Mr. Rohde recently completed new works for the Lyris Quartet, ZOFO Duet, the Lydian String Quartet, eighth blackbird, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Scharoun Ensemble, pianist Genevieve Lee, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble.

A Professor of Music Composition and Theory at the University of California at Davis Department of Music, where he was co-director of the Empyrean Ensemble until 2015, Kurt is a violist with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and was a member of The New Century Chamber Orchestra from 1994 to 2014. Mr. Rohde was a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2012–13. Mr. Rohde is a graduate of the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook, and has attended the Willapa Bay, Montalvo, Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Programs.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2017

Contact:

Lisa Oman, CSIC Executive Director
press@composersandschools.com

Orchestral Premiere Marks 100 Years of Music at Lowell High School

San Francisco, CA – On April 6, 2017, at 7:00 pm, the Lowell High School String Orchestra will mark the hundredth anniversary of music in the school’s curriculum with a composition commissioned and written especially for the students and the occasion. Charles Boone’s The Quickening Pollen will have its premiere, conducted by the composer, in the Carol Channing Theater.  The title, The Quickening Pollen, comes from a text written by James Russell Lowell, after whom the school is named. Boone says, “I was delighted to find that Lowell had written ‘Books are the bees that carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.’ Changing ‘Books are’ to ‘Music is’ gives a clue to the hopes behind this work. There is a pedagogical aspect to the piece; namely, to acquaint young musicians with certain twentieth century, vanguard notation and compositional possibilities with which they might be unfamiliar.”

The piece was commissioned through the nonprofit Composers and Schools in Concert, which matches professional composers with high school music programs. Boone has dedicated the composition “For Michele Winter, the orchestra’s exceptional conductor, and her remarkable Lowell students.” Says Winter, “Through this new piece, we are excited and honored to have such a special and meaningful way to celebrate one hundred years of music in our school’s curriculum. We are particularly grateful to members of the Lowell Alumni Association and the other contributors who have provided funding for the project.” Other contributors include Bay Area philanthropists Margaret Dorfman, Gordon P. and Ann G. Getty, Alden Jenks, and Mikako Endo.

Compositions by long-time San Francisco resident Charles Boone have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Berlin, Avignon, and Ojai Festivals, among other organizations. In preparation for the upcoming concert, the composer has worked at length with the students as they ready themselves for this notable event.

Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC) is a nationwide nonprofit organization governed by a Bay Area-based Board of Directors. It is the only organization in the United States dedicated to providing high school students with an educational experience in the professional field of music composition through composer commissions, workshops, and a contemporary score library for young performers. The Lowell High School-Boone collaboration marks the first San Francisco commission facilitated by the organization. Learn more about CSIC at https://www.composersandschools.com/about-us/.

WHO: Lowell High School Orchestra with Composer Charles Boone and CSIC
WHEN: Thursday, April 6 at 7:00pm
WHERE: Carol Channing Theater, Lowell High School, 1101 Eucalyptus Drive, at Forest View Drive, San Francisco
ADMISSION: Free

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Charles Boone, a composer living in San Francisco, was born in Cleveland in 1939 and educated in Vienna, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. His works have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin and Avignon Festivals,

Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC) is a nationwide nonprofit organization based out of Santa Cruz, California. Led by Executive Director Lisa Oman, it is the only organization in the United States dedicated to providing high school students with an educational experience in the professional field of music composition through composer commissions, workshops, and a contemporary score library for young performers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                                                         

February 27, 2015                                                                                      

(831) 471-5761 press@composersandschools.com

The Olmsted Academy South Girls Chorus in Louisville, KY, in tandem with the entire Olmsted Academy Middle School, will celebrate Women’s History month with a premiere of a newly-commissioned composition by Birmingham composer Ruth Elaine Schram. The piece was written specifically for the Olmsted South Girls Chorus with an emphasis on Women in History and Women in Music.

Louisville, KY, February 27, 2015 – At 6:00 pm on March 4th, the Olmsted Academy South Girls Chorus ensemble will perform a newly-commissioned work by composer Ruth Elaine Schram in celebration of Women’s History and Music in our Schools month. In collaboration with nonprofit Composers and Schools in Concert, this new work celebrates the Olmsted Academy South Girls Chorus programmatic emphasis on technique, musicianship, relationships and leadership under the guidance of choral music teacher, Ms. DeAnna Gray.

If you Google composer Ruth Elaine Schram, you will spend the next twenty-five pages reading about her long history with schools, publishers, and churches throughout the country. But for the last six months, she’s spent time with the students in Louisville teaching the chorus about creativity and the process of composition.

This new work is part of a greater school celebration that recognizes Women’s History and Music in our Schools month. “The entire school has done an amazing job of raising awareness and appreciation of an incredibly diverse range of women’s accomplishments and musical genres and styles,” says Olsted Academy South music teacher, DeAnna Gray.

Composers and Schools in Concert helps to provide youth music students the opportunity to work closely with a professional composer to learn about the process of music composition. CSIC Executive Director, Lisa Oman says, “CSIC Projects benefit schools, students, and the public with music and dialogue centered on collaboration.”

The concert will be held at 6:00 PM on March 4th at the Southwest Louisville Free Public Library located at 9725 Dixie Hwy Louisville, KY.

For more information visit www.composersandschools.com or contact Lisa Oman, CSIC Executive Director, at omanl@composersandschools.com or (831) 471-5761.
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Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC) is a nationwide organization based out of Santa Cruz, California. Led by Executive Director Lisa Oman, it is the only organization in the United States dedicated to providing high school students with an educational experience in the professional field of music composition through composer commissions, workshops, and a contemporary score library for young performers.

Local high school music students to spend a day in the life of a professional composer

Monterey, CA, March 1, 2014 — High school music students in the greater Monterey and Santa Cruz areas are in for a treat on Saturday, March 1st: the opportunity to spend a day learning and collaborating in pre-professional workshops with working composers. This all-day workshop event, put on by nonprofit organization Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC), is free for high school music students, thanks to a generous grant from McGraw-Hill Education.

The day will be filled with composer workshops which will introduce these students to music composition and the skills used by professional composers in the music-creating industry. Each student will participate in one morning workshop and one afternoon workshop of his or her choice. Students can choose from composer Gino Robair’s, “Improvising and Conducting Strategies for Large Ensembles”; composer Karl Cronin’s, “Orchestrating American Folk Songs”; composer Steve Horowitz’s “Classical Graphic Scores and Improvisation”; composer Katrina Wreede’s “Creating the Blues”; composer Edward Schocker’s, ”Creating Music with Made/Found Objects and Other Unusual Instruments”; and composer Steve Kirk’s, ”Scoring and Sound Design for Film, Television and Games.”

“Everything we do, we approach from the angle of: what opportunities do we wish had been available to us when we were high school music students? What do we wish we could have been exposed to, as musicians, before we got to college, or beyond?” explains Lisa Oman, Executive Director of Composers and Schools in Concert. The organization is filled with working composers, musicians, and music teachers. “We are so pleased to give local students this opportunity to work closely with professionals, Grammy winners, innovators, at the top of their games in the field of composition.”
Although the deadline to register is February 27th, we strongly encourage students to register now in order to claim their seat, and especially to let us know their primary instrument, in case any special arrangements are necessary,” says Oman. The March 1st, 2014 event will be held at 20 Ryan Ranch Rd., Monterey, CA 93940. Students must pre-register. Registration is online at https://www.composersandschools.com/events/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-composer/.

For more information please visit www.composersandschools.com or contact Lisa Oman, CSIC Executive Director at (916) 248-5541.

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Composers and Schools in Concert (CSIC) launched in 2011. Led by CSIC Director Lisa Oman, it is the only organization in the United States dedicated to providing high school age students the opportunity to work with a professional composer. Through music collaborations, students are offered invaluable insight into the career of composition.