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Ithaca, NY--James Matheson, a composer and lecturer in the Ithaca College School of Music, has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for the year 2000. He is one of 182 writers, painters, filmmakers, musicians, scholars, and scientists selected from over 2,900 applicants for this prestigious award, which is granted on the basis of distinguished achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. Past Guggenheim fellows include Aaron Copland, Vladimir Nabokov, Linus Pauling, and James Watson.
Guggenheim fellowships are granted for a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12 months. The purpose of the program is to provide fellows with blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible. There are no special conditions, and fellows may spend their grant funds in any manner they deem necessary to their work. Matheson received a bachelor's degree in music and philosophy from Swarthmore College in 1992. He continued his studies at Cornell University, where he received an M.F.A. in 1997 and where he is in the final stages of a doctoral program in composition. His principal composition teachers have included Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Gerald Levinson, Martin Bresnick, and Jacob Druckman. His music has been heard throughout the United States and abroad, including performances by Orchestra 2001 at concerts in Philadelphia and during the ensemble's residency at the Moscow Conservatory. Matheson's new work "Falling," a piece for piano trio, will be premiered on the chamber music series of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May. "Gliss," a new orchestral work, was selected by the American Composers Orchestra for this year's Whittaker New Music Reading Sessions, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed "Spin," a string quartet, on their chamber music series in May of last year. A recent work for solo piano, "Pound," is scheduled for release on CRI later this year on a recording by Xak Bjerken. In addition to the Guggenheim fellowship, Matheson has received several awards, including an ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award for his violin concerto "Sleep." The awards are granted to composers under 30 years of age whose works are selected through a national competition. Matheson taught Analysis of Twentieth-Century Music at Ithaca College this past spring semester. He previously taught at Hartwick College and the State University of New York at Binghamton. Contact: Dave Maley Office: (607) 274-1440 news@ithaca.edu Reference: 37 |
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