Community Music School Announces Winners of 2020-2021 Young Composers Competition
January 19, 2021
The Community Music School of Webster University is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020-2021 Young Composers Competition:
Level One (12-16 years of age):
- 1st Place: Luca Pasquini, 16, from Denver, Colorado - for Danse Orphique
- 2nd Place: Frazar Henry, 14, from Bonita Springs, Florida - for Song and Celebration
Level Two (17-21 years of age):
- 1st Place: Daniel DiMarino, 20, from Cleveland, Ohio - Cleveland Institute of Music for Three Sketches
- 2nd Place: Connor Johnson, 20, from Dexter, Michigan – Michigan State for ( [shift 9]
These young composers were chosen from over 59 submissions from all over the country and from as far away as China and Singapore. Winning works will be recorded by Chamber Project St. Louis and premiered on the CMS YouTube channel. In addition, winners will meet with 20-21 Guest Composer David Werfelmann for one-on-one feedback on their work. Werfelmann is assistant professor and director of the Bachelor of Arts in Music program at Webster University.
More information about online composition workshops and the YouTube Premiere will be announced later this Spring.
For winner biographies and other information, please visit webster.edu/cms.
About the Young Composers Competition
In 2004 the Community Music School (CMS) of Webster University initiated the Young Composers Competition in an effort to recognize and encourage the creative efforts of budding composers between the ages of 12 and 21. A team of composition judges select first and second place recipients in two levels; Level I is for students 12-16 years of age and Level II is for students 17-21 years of age. The competition reward is the professional performance and recording of winning compositions during the culminating Young Composers Competition Concert. In 2020, the Young Composers Concert was cancelled due to Covid-19. The concert was recorded by Chamber Project St. Louis and is available on the CMS YouTube Channel.
In addition, winning works are reviewed by a guest composer during a master class focused on individual feedback and the field of composition. Previous guest composers include Claude Baker, John Cheetham, James Mobberly, Jared Spears, Dinos Constantinides, Chen Yi, Shulamit Ran, Stephen Dankner, Zack Browning, Beth Denisch, Don Freund, Lansing McLoskey, Elizabeth Ogonek, Kyong Mee Choi and Niloufar Nourbakhsh and Angélica Negrón.
The Young Composers Competition is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Arden and Harry Fisher.