Previous Call for Scores Winners

Bobby Ge, Remember to Have Fun (2020) | 2024 Call for Scores Winner

For this year’s 39th annual Call for Scores, the NEP received more than 50 submissions from composers all over the world. After careful review of the submissions, Composer-in-Residence Eric Nathan, Music Director Tian Ng, and a committee of orchestra musicians selected Bobby Ge’s composition Remember to Have Fun as the winning work, which will be performed by the NEP in the 2024-25 season. 

Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator who explores themes of communication and hybridity through works that navigate boundaries between genre and medium. He has created multimedia projects with the Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Scattered Players Theater Company, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. 

Winner of the 2022 Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the U.S. Navy Band, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, among others. He is currently pursuing his PhD at Princeton University, and holds degrees from UC Berkeley and the Peabody Conservatory.

Learn more about Bobby Ge.

Oswald Huỳnh, Gia Đình (2021, rev. 2022) | 2023 Call for Scores Winner

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

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

Liliya Ugay, Oblivion (2015) | 2016 Call for Scores Winner

Angela Elizabeth Slater, Roil in Stillness (2015) | 2018 Call for Scores Winner

David Hertzberg, Spectre of the Spheres (2014) | 2015 Call for Scores Winner

Matthew Browne, How the Solar System Was Won (2012) | 2014 Call for Scores Winner

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.