Music professor awarded Barlow commission
Nov. 27, 2000
KALAMAZOO -- A Western Michigan University professor of music has been awarded a coveted commission from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition.
Dr. Curtis Curtis-Smith has been commissioned to complete a 20-minute work for horn, string quartet and piano. The piece will be titled "A Farewell (Les adieux)."
The work is being offered as a memorial gesture to late musician friends of the composer, including Herbert Butler, Donald Bullock, Neill Sander, William Albright and Yoshimi Takeda. The project also is receiving financial support from the Meir Rimon Commissioning Assistance Program of the International Horn Society and from the Fontana Concert Society in conjunction with the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival.
The work will be premiered on June 6, 2001, at the 33rd International Horn Symposium and in August at the Fontana summer concert series on the "Salute to Neill" concert. Karl Pituch, principal horn of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, will be featured horn soloist in the new piece.
The Barlow Endowment awards commissions to composers for selected works that have promise of outstanding artistic value. The competition for these awards is intense and is conducted on a national scale. Other composers who were also awarded commissions this year include Steven Stuckey of Cornell University, Stephen Jaffe, and Chen Yi.
The Barlow Endowment was established in 1983 through a gift from Milton A. and Gloria Barlow and is located at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
The award comes just after Curtis-Smith was selected earlier this fall, for the 23rd time, to receive an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Award.
Media contact: Mark Schwerin, 616 387-8400, mark.schwerin@wmich.edu