2020 Composers Now Festival Opening Event

The evening began with the presentation of the 2020 Composers Now Visionary Awards, recognizing members of the arts community who, through their own creative practice and advocacy for others, have made a profound, positive and lasting impact in our culture. This year, Henry Threadgill presented the award to:

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Carman Moore

Carman Moore's credits include commissions and performances by the New York Philharmonic (WILDFIRES AND FIELD SONGS), Cleveland Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (THE MYSTERY OF TAO), the Dayton Opera Company, the Orchestra of the Sorbonne, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra (GOSPEL FUSE), among others.  His multimedia MASS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY for which he created both words and music was commissioned by Lincoln Center and premiered outdoors in 1994 before audiences of thousands. He has taught at the Yale University School of Music, Queens and Brooklyn Colleges, Carnegie-Mellon University, and Manhattanville College. He and the Skymusic Ensemble, which he founded and conducts, were long-time Artists in Residence at New York's St. John the Divine Cathedral. His MADIBA, honoring the late Nelson Mandela, was commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 2015 at Carnegie Hall. MADIBA was then performed with a ballet choreographed by Jeremy McQueen at the Kennedy Center in April 2017. His CONCERTO FOR ORNETTE was premiered in 2013 at Juilliard by The New Juilliard Ensemble Orch. In 2013 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Featuring his Skymusic Ensemble, in September 2017 Moore conducted his score to the Museum of Modern Art "Dante's Inferno/ Among Friends" show honoring artist Robert Rauschenberg.  Mr. Moore has recently co-created and performs with Danish singer Lotte Arnsbjerg a multi-media song cycle concerned with the scourge of child sexual abuse, GIRL OF DIAMOND MOUNTAIN, its spin-off The ART OF TRANSFORMATION, concerned with rising from victimhood to empowerment… and their new nature-exalting show EMBRACING THE ROOT.

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Noah Becker

Jamaica, Después (Hibiscus, After)                              

Performed by Retumbra:
Noah Becker, clarinet
Jonah Udall, resonator guitar
Steve Williams, upright bass  

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Lisa Bielawa

Video screening of:

"Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser,Episode 5: The Cow Song"

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Robert Dick

Book of Shadows

Robert Dick, bass flute

Ilaria Loisa Hawley*

"Quando L'acqua riflette"(When the Water Reflects)

2020 recipient of the First Commission (a young composers award)

Face The Music, performers

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Niloufar Nourbakhsh

"Veiled" for cello and electronics

Amanda Gookin, cello

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Darian Donovan Thomas

"Fluid" for violin and electronics

Darian Donovan Thomas, violin

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• Born in 2009, Ilaria Loisa Hawley is the recipient of a 2019 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and the inaugural recipient of Claire Chase's Pnea Foundation Young Flutist Award. Ilaria's music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic and Face the Music, and she is a composition student of Mathew Fuerst and a flute student of Zara Lawler. She attends PS 314 Muscota New School and enjoys drawing, drama, reading, rock climbing, and making earrings.

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All photos except Niloufar Nourbakhsh by Nan Melville.

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