The first George Eastman Prize, established by the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music, has been awarded to composer Allan Blank of Richmond, Va.
Blank won the inaugural competition for his work Duo for Bassoon and Piano, and will receive a $5,000 award. In addition, Duo will be performed in Rochester during the coming season.
Honorable mentions in the George Eastman Prize Competition were awarded to William Winstead, of Tallahassee, Fla., for Concerto for Bassoon ("Wakulla ") with harp, harpsichord, and strings; to Daniel C. Kingman, of Sacramento, Cal., for Monday Music for bassoon and chamber orchestra; and to Akmal Parwez, of Flushing, N. Y., for Tantra for bassoon and harp. Those works also will be performed in Rochester in the coming season.
The George Eastman Prize Competition was established in 1982 by Eastman Director Robert Freeman to encourage composers to write for instruments with limited repertories. " If one thinks that the violin repertory before 1690 did not amount to much, that there was little for string quartet before 1760, that the evolution of the piano and orchestral repertories began late in the 18th century, and that the idea of a symphonic wind ensemble originated as recently as the early 1950's," Freeman noted when announcing the competition, "it is heartening to think that the best days of evolving repertories for bassoon, double bass, trumpet, oboe, tuba, harp, and clarinet, for example may lie largely in the future. "
The first competition, open to composers 18 years old and older residing in the Western Hemisphere, was open to works featuring the bassoon as a concertante instrument with up to 16 collaborating voices and/or instruments. Future rounds of the competition will be open to works featuring other instruments.
Judges for the first competition were composers Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, and Samuel Adler, and bassoonists Sol Schoenbach and K. David Van Hoesen.
Winning composer Allan Blank, associate professor of music at Virginia Commonwealth University, has shown a continuing interest in the instrument featured in the first George Eastman Prize Competition. His Duo for Bassoon and Piano, completed in 1979, was commissioned by Arthur Weisberg and was the first of three works Blank completed in that year for bassoon and piano. The second work, Introduction and Rondo Fantastico, was commissioned by the Virginia music Teachers Association; the third, Four Inventions, was premiered by the Bronx Arts Ensemble, William Scribner, bassoon.
Furthermore, Blank's most recently recorded work is his Two Ferlinghetti Songs for soprano and bassoon, performed by Ann Gresham and Don Christlieb for RAHMP Recordings. The work was recorded earlier for CRI by Jan DeGaetani and Arthur Weisberg.
Blank, a native of New York City, took his early musical training in violin and attended the High School of Music and Art, where he became interested in conducting and composition. He then studied at Juilliard, where he held a conducting fellowship from 1945 to 1947, and earned his bachelor's degree from New York University in 1948. He received his master's degree in 1950 from the University of Minnesota. Further studies included those at the University of Iowa and at the Princeton Seminar in Advanced Musical Studies.
Over 50 of his works have been published by such firms as Associated Music Publishers, Carl Fischer, Theodore Presser, Seesaw Music Corp. Music for Percussion, Smith Publications Needham Publishing, and Boosey and Hawkes. A number of his works are recorded on the CRI Orion, Advance, and Open Loop labels.
Blank's premiers in 1983 have included Divertimento for Tuba and Symphonic Band at the University of Northern Colorado with Jack Robinson soloist; Four Poems by Emily Dickinson for soprano, flute, and clarinet, by the Scarborough Chamber Players in Cambridge, Mass., Music for Solo Cello, by Victoria Parr in Richmond Va.; Some Funnies and Poems for narrator and piano in the Brandemill Concert Series in Brandemill, Va.; and A Miscellany for oboe and violin at Florida State University.
The following bassoonists have been selected as semi-finalists for the 1983 Gillet Competition
Cynthia Cioffari, Ohio, USA
Jeffrey Keesecker, Florida, USA
Sylvain Lhuissier, Quetigny, FRANCE
Peter Lutek, Ontaria, CANADA
David McGill, Oklahoma, USA
The first alternate is Donald Shore, Maryland, USA
Congratulations to these talented artists! These people will compete for the finals in closed audition on Tuesday, August 16th 1983, at Florida State University, Tallahassee during the 12th Annual Conference there. The finalists will then perform the Willson Osborne Rhapsody for Solo Bassoon for the attending members of the IDRS on Wednesday, August 17th at 11:00 a.m. The presence of semi-finalists from three countries, representing both the German and French system instruments lends an exciting international flavor to this year's competition.