Previous Call for Scores Winners
Oswald Huỳnh, Gia Đình (2021, rev. 2022) | 2023 Call for Scores Winner
Photo by Allison Davis
For the 38th annual Call for Scores, the NEP received more than 100 submissions from composers all over the world. After careful review of the submissions, Composer-in-Residence Eric Nathan and Music Director Tian Ng selected Oswald Huỳnh’s composition Gia Đình (Family) as the winning work, which will be performed by the NEP in the 2023-24 season.
Vietnamese composer Oswald Huỳnh holds degrees from Lewis & Clark College (B.A.) and University of Missouri (M.M.). He has been commissioned by American orchestras including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, and American Composers Orchestra. He currently works with the American Composers Forum as an administrator, along with teaching music theory at the Portland Youth Philharmonic in Oregon.
Gia Đình was originally written for the St. Louis Symphony. The piece examines and explores grief, time, and being from both Western and Eastern concepts.
Learn more about Oswald Huỳnh.
Elijah Daniel Smith, Wraith Weight (2021) | 2022 Call for Scores Winner
Photo: Colin Mohr
After careful review of the more than 160 submissions by composers around the globe, NEP Composer-in-Residence Eric Nathan selected a list of 14 finalists and ultimately chose Smith’s submission as the winning work.
Praised by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a “rising star,” composer Elijah Daniel Smith is quickly establishing himself as one of today’s leading young composers. His music, which has been described as “an extended flirtation with chaos” (Chicago Tribune) and as “a compilation of sounds that defy their source” (Picture This Post) ranges from orchestral compositions to multimedia and interdisciplinary collaborations. Smith’s affinity for dense and complex textures, rhythmic ambiguity and fluidity, and rich gravitational harmonies shines through in all of his creations. Smith’s music has been premiered and performed by world renowned ensembles such as The Chicago Symphony Orchestra for MusicNOW, Mivos Quartet, Sō Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Contemporaneous, ~Nois, DITHER, Ensemble Linea, Ecce Ensemble, Fuse Quartet, Earspace, and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming commissions and projects include new works for Bergamot Quartet, saxophonist Julian Velasco on behalf of the Luminarts Cultural Foundation, and Copland House for Cultivate.
Smith is currently pursuing his PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow after earning a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition from the Boston Conservatory in 2017, and a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in 2020.
Learn more about Elijah Daniel Smith.
Igor Santos, ploy, pivot | 2021 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Igor Santos’ work ploy, pivot as the winner of the 36th Call for Scores winner. Santos’ work will be performed in the upcoming 2021-22 season.
Described as “otherworldly and mysteriously familiar” (Chicago Classical Review), and as “exciting and clear… with a striking boldness” (Luigi Nono Competition Prize), Igor Santos’ music has been performed internationally, by leading musicians such as Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Dal Niente, Alarm Will Sound, eighth blackbird, POING, the American Composers Orchestra, and The Florida Orchestra.
Igor has recently been awarded the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has previously won prizes in the Luigi Nono International Competition, the RED NOTE Competition, and the Salvatore Martirano Award. In addition, he has been given the Best Sound Design award from Theatre Tampa Bay, for his work as a composer of incidental music. Igor has earned degrees from the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 2018), the Eastman School of Music (M.A. 2012), and the University of South Florida (B.M. 2010). Additional studies include workshops and festivals such as Composers Conference (2020), Mizzou (2018), Impuls (2017), Time of Music (2017), ManiFeste (2015), Fontainebleau (2011), among others.
Igor is a native of Curitiba, Brazil, and in addition to writing concert music, he serves as Technical Director for Ensemble Dal Niente and composes for theater productions throughout the US and Europe.
For more information, please visit Igor Santos’ website.
Sofía Rocha, Replier | 2020 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Sofía Rocha’s work, Replier, as the winning composition of the 35th annual Call for Scores competition. Rocha’s work will be performed by the NEP in the upcoming 2021-22 season (rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Sofía Rocha (b. 1996 in Boulder, Colorado) writes music of uncompromising emotional intensity while exploring cognition, randomness, rhythm and counterpoint within post-tonal frameworks. She writes for all manner of performing forces instrumental, vocal and electronic. Her work, Replier, was chosen as the winner of the 2020 New England Philharmonic annual call-for-scores. Sofía has also received honors from ASCAP, OM/NI Composition Competition and Tenebrae New Music Ensemble. She has worked with numerous ensembles including DeCoda, loadbang, Brentano String Quartet, Castle of our Skins, Transient Canvas, Hypercube, arx duo, Duo Entre-Nous, Tenebrae New Music Ensemble, the Sunderman Wind Quintet, the Sunderman Conservatory Orchestra and Wind Symphony, and the Atlantic Music Festival New Music Ensemble and Orchestra as well as numerous solo performers.
Sofía received her master’s degree in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory as a Chancellor’s Scholar and recipient of Elsberry & Gonder Family and Conservatory scholarships. While attending, she studied with Chen Yi, Yotam Haber, Paul Rudy and Zhou Long. Rocha was also the 2019 composer-in-residence for the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet. She completed her undergraduate work at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College in 2019, receiving a BA in Music with Honors as a Wagnild Scholar and studying composition with Avner Dorman. She has attended the Atlantic Music Festival and Divergent Studio and the Hypercube Composition Lab as a composer, studying and taking master classes with composers such as Hannah Lash, George Tsontakis, Richard Danielpour, Aaron Helgeson, Amy Beth Kirsten, and David Serkin Ludwig, among others. Besides composing, Sofía is also an avid trombonist and conductor, having performed with numerous symphony orchestras, wind ensembles and jazz groups.
For more information, please visit Sofía Rocha’s website.
Hilary Purrington, Above the last cloud | 2019 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Hilary Purrington’s “Above the last cloud,” winner of their 34th annual Call for Scores. The composition will receive its Boston Premiere under the direction of Richard Pittman. The NEP began an annual Call for Scores in 1985 to showcase a contemporary classical music composition by an emerging composer.
Hilary Purrington is a New York City–based composer of chamber, vocal, and orchestral music. Her work has received recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC), among others.
Purrington’s orchestral and chamber works have been performed by many distinguished ensembles, including the Peabody Modern Orchestra, the American Modern Ensemble, Voices of Change, and the Chicago Harp Quartet. Her orchestral work Likely Pictures in Haphazard Sky, premiered by the Yale Philharmonia, has been read by the Philadelphia and American Composers Orchestras and performed by the Minnesota Orchestra. Recent commissions include new works for the New York Youth Symphony,
the NOVUS Trombone Quartet, and Washington Square Winds. Upcoming projects include commissions for the Philadelphia Orchestra and the American Composers Orchestra. For the 2018–19 season, Purrington was named the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year and served as composer-in-residence for the Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble.
Purrington has also composed several works for dance. Most recently, the Albany Symphony commissioned Patterns, a new work for chamber orchestra. Inspired by the life of the fashion arbiter Ellen Louise Demorest, the piece featured the Albany Berkshire Ballet with choreography by Mary Talmi. In 2018, Purrington participated in Periapsis Music and Dance’s Emerging Artist Residencies and created a new work with choreographer Annalee Traylor, which premiered in May 2019. While attending The Juilliard School, Purrington collaborated with choreographer Stephanie Terasaki to create a new work for brass quartet and dance.
An accomplished vocalist, Purrington has developed a reputation as a skilled composer of solo and choral music. Her song “For your Judicious and Pious Consideration” was premiered by mezzo-soprano Adele Grabowsky on the 2016 NY Phil Biennial’s New Music New Haven concert. In 2015, the Eric Stokes Fund commissioned Purrington to compose a new song cycle about the devastating effects of climate change. The resulting work, A Clarion Call, was premiered at the 2017 Conference for Ecology and Religion hosted by the Yale Divinity School. Recent vocal commissions include new works for the Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, Yale Glee Club, inFLUX, and the Bowers/Fader Duo. In April 2019, C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective premiered John Eason Stops Preaching, a new work with words by the contemporary poet Julia Bouwsma.
Originally from Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Purrington lives and works in New York City. She holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
For more information, please visit Hilary Purrington’s website.
Lachlan Skipworth, Spiritus (2017) | 2017 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Lachlan Skipworth’s Spiritus (2017) winner of their 32nd annual Call for Scores. The composition will receive its US premiere by the NEP under the direction of Richard Pittman during the 2018-19 season. The NEP began an annual Call for Scores in 1985 to showcase a contemporary classical music composition by an emerging composer. This year’s Call for Scores received 104 entries from 17 countries. The music of Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth has been described as featuring “bold, innovative textures, and compelling melody”. His individual and highly personal compositional language is coloured by three years spent in Japan, where his immersion in the study of the shakuhachi bamboo flute inevitably became a part of his muse. He has recently been awarded the coveted Paul Lowin prize for orchestral composition for his Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (2014), which was premiered by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra with whom he is currently composer-in-residence.
For more information, please visit Lachlan Skipworth’s website.
Liliya Ugay, Oblivion (2015) | 2016 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Liliya Ugay’s Oblivion winner of their 31st annual Call for Scores. The composition will receive its Boston premiere by the NEP under the direction of Richard Pittman at their April 29, 2017 concert. The NEP began an annual Call for Scores in 1985 to showcase a contemporary classical music composition by an emerging composer. This year’s Call for Scores received 147 entries from 23 countries.
Liliya Ugay is an award-winning composer and pianist whose music has been performed in many countries across the globe. A recipient of the 2016 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, her music has been described both as “assertive, steely” and “lovely, supple writing” by the Wall Street Journal. Among her competition prizes are the Molinari Quartet international composition competition (Montreal, Canada), International composition competition Pre-Art (Zurich, Switzerland), Edward Grieg International composition competition (Oslo, Norway), International competition for young composers-Crystal Camerton (Moscow Conservatory/Union of Composers, Russia), and the MTNA National Young Artist Composition competition.
Ugay’s music has been featured at many festivals among which are the Darmstadt International Courses of New Music, New York International Electroacoustic Music Festival, American Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Boston New Music Initiative, and the Venice Biennale. She has been commissioned and performed by Albany Symphony, Yale Philharmonia, New England Philharmonic, Raleigh Civic Symphony, Columbus State University Philharmonic, ensembles Molinari, Antico Moderno and Omnibus. Her compositions expand from traditional ensembles to musical theater and electroacoustic music.
As a pianist, Liliya is particularly interested in exploring and promoting unknown music of Soviet composers who were victims of political persecutions: her last project was a lecture-recital entitled “Silenced Voices: Music of Soviet Russia”, which she worked on under the guidance of Boris Berman. Liliya is a prize winner of several piano competitions, among which are the second prize at the International competition “Verfemte Musik” (Germany) and 4th prize at the 14th International Beethoven Piano Sonatas competition. Liliya received her Masters of Music at the Yale School of Music studying with Aaron Kernis, Martin Bresnick, and Christopher Theofanidis. Liliya will start working on her DMA degree at Yale University this Fall.
For more information, please visit Liliya Ugay’s website.
Angela Elizabeth Slater, Roil in Stillness (2015) | 2018 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Angela Elizabeth Slater’s Roil in Stillness (2015), winner of their 33rd annual Call for Scores. The composition will receive its World Premiere under the direction of Richard Pittman. The NEP began an annual Call for Scores in 1985 to showcase a contemporary classical music composition by an emerging composer
Angela Elizabeth Slater is a UK-based composer. She is also the founder of the Illuminate concert series set up to raise the profile of women composers. In her AHRC-funded PhD in composition at the University of Nottingham, Angela developed an interest in incorporating different aspects of the natural world into her compositions. She has been working on a series of works that engage with the natural world, musically mapping particular aspects into the fabric of her music.
Recently she has worked with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Bozzini Quartet, Assembly project, Aurea Quartet, BBC Singers, and Psappha, amongst others. Angela is passionate about new music for amateurs and professionals and works hard to raise the profile of female composers.
In 2015 the Boltini Trust award supported Angela to attend the advanced composition course at Dartington summer school. Angela has recently participated in the 2017 St Magnus Composition Course, working with Alasdair Nicholson and Sally Beamish, and the Britten-Pears Young Artists Composers’ Course 2017, where she worked with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, and Michael Gandolfi. Her work Soaring in Stasis was premiered at the 2018 Aldeburgh Festival on 22nd June. She has recently been selected for Moonlight Symphony Orchestra’s composition workshops programme, which will result in a new work being premiered in 2019. Angela is also the 2018 Young Composer of the Year for the London Firebird Orchestra, leading to a new work, Twilight Inversions, which will be premiered 11th June 2019. She is also delighted to be the winner of New England Philharmonic’s 2018 call for scores. NEP will premiere her piece Roil in Stillness 27th April 2019. Angela has recently become a 2018 Mendelssohn Scholar and will continue her studies with Michael Gandolfi in Boston in Spring 2019. In June Angela will have two exciting performances one from the Hildegard National Sawdust ensemble giving her Rainbow Fires its world-premiere in Brooklyn, New York on 4th June 2019, followed by a world-premiere of her work Of Spheres for string quartet by the Semiosis quartet on 7th June 2019 at the International Alliance for Women in Music conference at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, USA.
For more information, please visit Angela Elizabeth Slater’s website.
David Hertzberg, Spectre of the Spheres (2014) | 2015 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected Spectre of the Spheres by David Hertzberg, winner of their 30th annual Call for Scores. The composition received its Boston premiere by the NEP under the direction of Richard Pittman at their April 30, 2016 concert. NEP began an annual Call for Scores in 1985 to showcase a contemporary classical music composition by an emerging composer. This year’s Call for Scores received 133 entries from 22 countries.
“David Hertzberg’s Spectre of the Spheres is a beautifully written work with startlingly crystalline textures. It evokes a musical world that is both familiar and mysterious. It has a grand sweep to it, and achingly beautiful melodies,” said NEP’s Composer-in-Residence, David Rakowski who has presided over the judging for the last four years.
Hailed as “opulently gifted” and “utterly original” David Hertzberg is swiftly garnering recognition, with his music enjoying performances at festivals in Aspen, Tanglewood, and Santa Fe, and on the stages of Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall.
Highlights of his 2014-2015 season include premieres of new works for Young Concert Artist, the PRISM Quartet, Network for New Music, and the Curtis Orchestra, with performances at Merkin Hall and Symphony Space, as well as performances at the Kennedy Center, features on APM’s Performance Today and Hong Kong’s Intimacy of Creativity festival, and performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the American Composers Orchestra. Other upcoming projects include new works for pianist Steven Lin and violinist In Mo Yang, both of which premiered on the 2015-16 Concert Artists Guild series at Carnegie Hall, and a large-scale concert work for Gotham Chamber Opera, premiered on their 2015-16 season in New York.
David began his musical studies in violin, piano, and composition at the Colburn School and received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees with Scholastic Distinction from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Samuel Adler. At his commencement, he was awarded the John Erskine Prize for outstanding artistic achievement throughout the course of his studies. He holds an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music.
For more information, please visit David Hertzberg’s website.
Matthew Browne, How the Solar System Was Won (2012) | 2014 Call for Scores Winner
The New England Philharmonic (NEP) has selected How the Solar System Was Won by Matthew Browne, winner of the Call for Scores competition. The composition was performed by the NEP under the direction of Richard Pittman at their May 2, 2015 concert.
NEP began Call for Scores in 1985 to showcase a contemporary classical music composition by an emerging composer. This year’s Call for Scores received 50 entries from 7 countries. “Matt Browne’s How the Solar System Was Won shows remarkable imagination and facility in writing for the orchestra,” said NEP’s Composer-in-Residence, David Rakowski. “The piece is a tone poem that surrounds mercurial, brassy, and hair-raising music with slow, ethereal, atmospheric passages … everyone in the orchestra will have a ball with it.”
Vermont native and composer Matthew Browne strives to create music that meets Diaghilev’s famous challenge–“to astonish.” His recent compositions have incorporated such eclectic influences as the timbral imagination of György Ligeti, the shocking and humorous polystylism of Alfred Schnittke, and the relentless energy of Igor Stravinsky.
Mr. Browne is a recipient of the 2014 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award and the 2014 American Viola Society’s Maurice Gardner Composition Award. His recent collaborators include the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Donald Sinta Saxophone Quartet, the Tesla String Quartet, and the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Browne holds a Master of Music in Music Composition from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is currently pursuing his Doctoral of Musical Arts in Music Composition from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
For more information, please visit Matthew Browne’s website.
Carl Schimmel, Woolgatherer’s Chapbook (2008) | 2013 Call for Scores Winner
Michael Gilbertson, Vigil (2007) | 2012 Call for Scores Winner
Michael-Thomas Foumai, The Light-Bringer (Symphony no.1) (2010) | 2011 Call for Scores Winner
Chris Sainsbury, First Light, from Symphony of the Birds (2007, rev. 2010) | 2010 Call for Scores Winner
Kathryn Salfelder, Dessin no. 1 (2008) | 2009 Call for Scores Winner
Jorge Villavicencio Grossman, Pasiphae (2008–9) | 2008 Call for Scores Winner
Carlos Rafael Rivera, Popol-Vuh: Four Mayan Dance Scenes (2004) | 2007 Call for Scores Co-Winner
Carl Christian Bettendorf, Cryptic Circle (1997, rev. 1998) | 2007 Call for Scores Co-Winner
Stephen Gorbos, Diaphony (2006) | 2006 Call for Scores Winner
Andrew Norman, Sacred Geometry (2003) | 2005 Call for Scores Winner
Thomas Osborne, The Burning Music: Prelude for Orchestra (2003) | 2004 Call for Scores Winner
Winner bios are up to date as of the year they won with the NEP. To read the most up to date bio, visit the included websites where available.