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Felder honored as outstanding composer
UB composer David Felder has been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Photo: DOUGLAS LEVERE
UB faculty member David Felder, widely regarded as one of America’s finest composers of contemporary classical music, has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ 2010 Academy Award in Music.
The award “honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges a composer who has arrived at his or her own voice.” It carries a $7,500 cash prize and an additional $7,500 award toward the recording of one work. The award will be presented at the academy’s annual ceremonial, to be held in May in its landmark auditorium in New York City.
The award’s 2010 recipients—Felder, Daniel Asia, Pierre Jalbert and James Primosch—are considered to be among the finest composers of their generation. Candidates for all of the academy’s music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the academy, who include leading figures on the American art scene.
Winners are selected by a committee of academy members—in this case, five of America’s most celebrated composers: Robert Beaser (chair), Bernard Rands, Gunther Schuller, Steven Stucky and Yehudi Wynder.
SUNY Distinguished Professor and Birge-Cary Chair in Composition in the Department of Music, Felder is the artistic director of the June in Buffalo Festival and Conference for emerging composers of new music, and directs the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music at UB.
His work is known for its highly energetic profile through its frequent employment of technological extension and elaboration of musical materials (including his “Crossfire” video series), and for its lyrical qualities.
His compositions have been featured at many leading international festivals for new music in the U.S. and abroad, and earns continuing recognition through performance and commissioning programs by such organizations as the New York New Music Ensemble, Arditti Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, American Brass Quintet and many others.
Felder has received numerous grants, awards and commissions from a variety of organizations, among them the National Endowment for the Arts; New York Foundation for the Arts; the Rockefeller Foundation and the Fromm Foundation. He also has received Guggenheim and Koussevitzky fellowships, “Meet the Composer New Residencies” with the Buffalo Philharmonic and two commissions from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust.
He founded and is the artistic director of the Slee Sinfonietta, UB’s professional chamber orchestra, and his works are published by Theodore Presser and recorded by Albany, Mode, Bridge and EMF.
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