2023 First Commission Award

DORIAN TABB

Hymn for a Forgotten People (2023)

Bergamot Quartet
Ledah Finck and Sarah Thomas, violins
Amy Tan, viola
Irène Han, cello

Dorian Tabb (b. 2010) began his piano studies at age four and started composing one year later. A frequent performer of his own compositions and improvisations, in 2020 he was the youngest composer to be featured on "Tokyo to New York: Moments in Time," Thomas Piercy's benefit concert for Covid-19 musicians' relief, with his solo clarinet work, "Exploration," which later received its live premiere at Bargemusic. He currently studies piano with Lora Tchekoratova, conducting with Scott Wiley and is enrolled in the Very Young Composers "Bridge" program at the New York Philharmonic. Previous teachers have included Marc Peloquin, Avner Arad and Max Grafe at the Lucy Moses School. His quintet, The Journey Home, was premiered at David Geffen Hall in Oct. 2022.

Dorian's mentor for this commission is composer and violinist Tamar Muskal. Her music harmonizes the unique cultural aspects of both places in a counterpoint style, carefully structured and with great attention to detail. Recent and future commissions include a double concerto for saxophone and viola for the Williamsport Symphony, a work for percussionist Steve Schick and a digital/interactive sculpture by Daniel Rozin, music for a 50-minute film for the historic, silent, black and white film about the Mexican revolution, a song cycle commissioned by ASCAP and music for a documentary film about finding a cure for blindness (narrated by Robert Redford). Her piece Yellow Wind (2007) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.