Annual American Composers Update

SAI Honorary Member Augusta Read Thomas holds the position of Associate Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music. In June 1997 she began a three-year term as Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1996-97 she taught composition to high school students at the Harley School, Rochester, NY, as part of The Commission Project. She was invited to join the visiting faculty of the Salzburg Seminar's session, Music for a New Millennium: The Classical Genre in Contemporary Society Seminar, Dec. 6-13, 1997, held at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg on the occasion of the Seminar's 50th anniversary. She became an Honorary Member of SAI in 1996. Among Thomas's upcoming projects are an opera, Dreams in the Cave of Eros, in collaboration with Leslie Dunton-Downer; Concertino for Orchestra, commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra to celebrate its 75th-anniversary season, May 21-23, 1998; Orbital Beacons, for orchestra divided into ten sections, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for its 1998-99 season; a ballet commissioned by the Saint Paul (MN) Chamber Orchestra and the James Sewell Dance Company, to be premiered at the Ordway Theater, September 1998; an organ work commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for a July 1998 premiere; and a cello concerto for David Finckel, commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival, for a premiere during its 50th-anniversary season, July 1999.

In 1997 Mstislav Rostropovich gave the Russian premiere of Ligeia, with the Moscow Opera Company. Conducted by Pierre Boulez, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra presented Words of the Sea, December 1996. Under Seiji Ozawa, Rostropovich and the Boston Symphony Orchestra introduced Chanson, April 1997, in Boston's Symphony Hall and New York's Carnegie Hall. Also in Carnegie Hall, the Rascher Saxophone Quartet and the American Composers Orchestra, led by Dennis Russell Davies, gave the first performance of Brass Axis, a saxophone quartet concerto, Jan. 11, 1998. On Apr. 25, 1998, Flute Concerto will be heard first, with Nadine Asin and the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay. Except for the Flute Concerto, which was funded by Thomas Van Straaten, all works were commissioned by the performers.

For more complete information, see Augusta Thomas' entry in our Composers Bureau Online.