Christopher Stark selected for 2015 Copland House Residency Award

Christopher Stark, Assistant Professor of Composition, is one of ten composers selected for the prestigious 2015 Copland House Residency Awards.  Professor Stark's residency will be for the month of June 2016. 

From the Copland House Press Release:

Cortlandt Manor, NY, September 15, 2015 – Ten gifted American composers from eight states have been chosen for the 2015 Copland House Residency Awards, all-expenses-paid stays at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley.

The winners are Carlos Carrillo (45, Urbana, IL), Viet Cuong (24, Princeton, NJ), William Dougherty (27, New York, NY), Melody Eotvos (30, Bloomington, IN), Jeremy Gill (40, Jamaica Plain, MA), Charles Halka (32, Houston, TX), Gabriella Smith (23, El Cerrito, CA), Christopher Stark (34, St. Louis, MO), Christopher Trapani (35, Astoria, NY), and Roger Zare (29, Evanston, IL). Several of the composers have previously been honored by Copland House: Carrillo was among Copland House’s first Residents in 1998, and Cuong, Dougherty, and Zare were Fellows of Copland House’s acclaimed CULTIVATE emerging composers’ institute.

They were selected out of 86 applicants from 26 states and two countries by this year’s eminent jury, which included composers Sebastian Currier, Louis Karchin, and Christopher Theofanidis (a 2014 Copland House Resident). This brings to nearly 140 the total number of residencies hosted by Copland House since its flagship composers’ program was launched in 1998.

“Knowing from personal experience what a Copland House stay can mean to a composer's work and mental space made it even more difficult to select this year’s Residents,” Theofanidis explained. “The applicants were at the very highest level – astonishing, really – and the variety of stylistic and technical approaches was impressive.” Reflecting on her Residency earlier this summer, composer Anne LeBaron said “I had an amazingly productive time at Copland House, where the isolation and inspiring surroundings did a great deal to contribute to my creative process, and was absolutely necessary as I was faced with imminent deadlines.”

The Residents will live and work, one at a time, for three to eight weeks in the prairie-style, hilltop house near New York City that Copland called “my hideaway, my solitude,” and was his home for the last 30 years of his life. As Copland House Residents, they will also become eligible for post-residency awards, commissions, and performances that advance their work, including the Sylvia Goldstein Award, Borromeo String Quartet Award, Hoff-Barthelson Music School Commission, and others, and their music may be showcased in performance by the Music from Copland House ensemble.

An Official Project of the federal Save America’s Treasures program, Copland House is the only composer’s home in the U.S. devoted to nurturing and renewing America’s rich musical heritage through a broad range of creative, educational, and performance programs. Additional information about Copland House and its activities can be found at www.coplandhouse.org or by calling (914) 788-4659.