ROCKPORT, ME.- The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation announced Kenneth Fuchs is the recipient of its 3rd annual $20,000 Composer Award. With the Award, Fuchs will create a new work to be performed in 2023 by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. Fuchs, a Grammy Award-winning composer and professor of composition at the University of Connecticut, was selected through a juried national competition and chosen from over 225 applicants.
Fuchs says, “The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation’s support for my music touches me deeply. I admire the Foundation’s mission of promoting community engagement and inclusivity through musical expression and look forward to creating a meaningful work that exemplifies these values in collaboration with my colleagues of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.”
The jury was comprised of composers Augusta Read Thomas and Adam Schoenberg, and conductor Mei-Ann Chen. Reflecting on the jury’s decision, Thomas said, “Kenneth Fuchs has an exceptional ear for pitch, harmony, rhythm, and timbre which, allied to his vivid and flexible imagination, results in lyrical, elegant, compelling, and personal compositions.” Schoenberg echoed Thomas’s thoughts: “Kenneth is a gifted composer who writes deeply personal and expressive works. His level of craftsmanship, meticulously detailed scores, and gorgeous orchestrations made his music stand out.” Looking ahead to the premiere, Chen noted, “Captivating and engaging, Mr. Fuchs’ music will be an exciting culmination of the wonderful Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award and a highly anticipated spotlight in the Bangor Symphony’s next season!”
The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award has seen nearly 900 submissions over the course of its first three application cycles. In October, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra premiered inaugural award recipient Reinaldo Moya’s Concerto for Piano, Strings, and Percussion with Joyce Yang as soloist. The Orchestra is slated to premiere Jessica Meyer’s The Air of New Places on March 6th, 2022; Meyer was the 2nd annual award recipient.
Composer Augusta Read Thomas went on to say, “The Ellis Beauregard Foundation Composer Award in partnership with the Bangor Symphony and Lucas Richman offers a tour-de-force musical opportunity that allows a fortunate composer and performing artists to do the important work of collaborating together to further music’s flexible, diverse capacity and innate power.”
The Foundation intends to announce details of the 2022 application cycle in May.
Kenneth Fuchs has recorded for Naxos five albums with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta; the latest won the 2018 GRAMMY® Award for “Best Classical Compendium.” He has composed music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, soloists, and various chamber ensembles. With Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson, Fuchs created three chamber musicals. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum presented Fuchs’s operatic monodrama Falling Man (text by Don DeLillo, adapted by J. D. McClatchy) in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of 9/11. His music has achieved significant global recognition through performances, media exposure, and digital streaming and downloading.
In August 2020, Naxos released Point of Tranquility (Seven Works for Symphonic Winds), recorded by the United States Coast Guard Band. Naxos also published an album of chamber music including Falling Canons, Falling Trio and String Quartet No. 5 “American.” Albany Records published String Quartets 2, 3, 4 in definitive performances by the American String Quartet.
Fuchs serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and received master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees from The Juilliard School. His composition teachers include Milton Babbitt, David Diamond, and Vincent Persichetti. His music is published by Bill Holab Music, Hal Leonard LLC, Edward B. Marks Music Company, and Theodore Presser Company, and it has been recorded by Albany and Naxos Records.
