NILO ALCALA of North Hollywood CA is the winner of The American Prize in Composition, 2019, in the choral division (major works), for his composition entitled Manga Pakalagian (Ceremonies). NILO ALCALA was selected from applications reviewed recently from all across the United States. The American Prize is the nation’s most comprehensive series of non-profit competitions in the performing arts, unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, ensembles and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings. The American Prize was founded in 2009 and is awarded annually in many areas of the performing arts.
Applications for The American Prize contests, 2019-20 season, are being accepted through Monday, August 5, 2019. Complete information on the website: http://www.theamericanprize.org/
Although the deadlines on the application forms and contest pages may not be updated, applicants will be accepted through the August deadline.
Link to official announcement: https://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2019/07/winners-composers-major-choral-works.html
The artist provided this biographical sketch:
Nilo Alcala’s works have been performed in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. He is the first Philippine-born composer to receive the COPLAND HOUSE Residency Award, as well to be commissioned and premiered by the Grammy-nominated Los Angeles Master Chorale.
Alcala’s awards include the POLYPHONOS Young Composer Award from The Esoterics (Seattle, WA), IGNITE Commissioning Competition of C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective (New York, NY), Asian Composers League Young Composer Award (Israel), the very first Ani ng Dangal (Harvest of Honor) from the Philippine President, and Musical America Worldwide’s Artist of the Month. Music His commissions include the National Music Competition for Young Artists; Andrea O. Veneracion International Choral Festival; Korean Ministry of Culture; Asia-Europe Foundation; Metro Manila Concert Orchestra, Manila Symphony Orchestra, San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles. Notable collaborations include performances by the World Youth Choir (2018 & 2019), and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Alcala’s works have been performed by winning ensembles in international choral competitions as well as choral symposiums and festivals around the world.
Alcala was composer-in-residence of the Philippine Madrigal Singers which premiered his works in international competitions such as the 2006 Florilege Vocal de Tours (France); the 2007 and 2017 European Grand Prix for Choral Singing (Italy); and events including the American Choral Directors Association National Conference (Dallas, TX); the 9th World Symposium on Choral Music (Argentina); and America Cantat 7 (Colombia). In 2017, The group also released a CD and digital album of Alcala’s choral works entitled ONOMATOPOEIA: The Choral Works of Nilo Alcala.
An Asian Cultural Council grantee, Alcala is also a Billy Joel Fellow at Syracuse University where he earned an MMus in Composition and received the Irene L. Crooker Music Award. He holds a BM in Composition at the University of the Philippines, graduating Magna cum laude and recipient of Gawad Chancelor Natatanging Mag-aaral (Chancellor’s Outstanding Student Award).
Committed to educating the next generation, Alcala was composer-mentor for Pasadena Master Chorale’s “Listening to the Future” program (2016-2019) for promising high school composers.
And this short description of the winning work:
Commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Master Chorale for its “Made in LA” concert in 2015, MANGÁ PAKALAGIÁN (Ceremonies) is a multi movement suite for choir and kulintang ensemble that takes inspiration from the Maguindanao people of Southern Philippines and how they use traditional music to punctuate or celebrate events in the community, thus elevating these events into a ceremony.
The kulintang is the foremost traditional percussion ensemble in Maguindanao and is a set of graduated metallic gongs which plays the melody. Kulintang also refers to the traditional repertoire as well as the whole percussion ensemble itself. The Maguindanaons play a specific traditional kulintang piece for every occasion, ritual, or ceremony. Featured in Manga Pakalagian are three of these ceremonies, with actual traditional kulintang music as preludes.
The world premiere on November 15, 2015 at the Disney Concert Hall featured the LA Master Chorale (Grant Gershon, Artistic Director) together with the late master kulintang artist Danongan Danny Kalanduyan with his group SUBLA on the kulitang ensemble.
Additional information about the competitions on the website:www.theamericanprize.org
For runners-up in this category and for additional winners already announced in 2018-19 in other competitions, please follow this link:
http://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/
Winners of The American Prize receive cash prizes, professional adjudication and regional, national and international recognition based on recorded performances. In addition to monetary rewards and written evaluations from judges, winners are profiled on The American Prize websites, where links will lead to video and audio excerpts of artist performances. The 2019-20 deadline for applications to The American Prize contests is Monday, August 5, 2019. Details on the website.
THE AMERICAN PRIZE—History & Judges
The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts grew from the belief that a great deal of excellent music being made in this country goes unrecognized and unheralded, not only in our major cities, but all across the country: in schools and churches, in colleges and universities, and by community and professional musicians.
With the performing arts in America marginalized like never before, The American Prize seeks to fill the gap that leaves excellent artists and ensembles struggling for visibility and viability. The American Prize recognizes and rewards the best America produces, without bias against small city versus large, or unknown artist versus well-known.
David Katz is the chief judge of The American Prize. Professional conductor, award-winning composer, playwright, actor and arts advocate, he is author of MUSE of FIRE, the acclaimed one-man play about the art of conducting. Joining Katz in selecting winners of The American Prize is a panel of judges as varied in background and experience as we hope the winners of The American Prize will be. Made up of distinguished musicians representing virtually every region of the country, the group includes professional vocalists, conductors, composers and pianists, tenured professors, and orchestra, band and choral musicians.
“Most artists may never win a Grammy award, or a Pulitzer, or a Tony, or perhaps ever even be nominated,” Katz said, “but that does not mean that they are not worthy of recognition and reward. Quality in the arts is not limited to a city on each coast, or to the familiar names, or only to graduates of a few schools. It is on view all over the United States, if you take the time to look for it. The American Prize exists to encourage and herald that excellence.”
By shining a light on nationally recognized achievement, winners of The American Prize receive world-class bragging rights to use in promotion right at home. “If The American Prize helps build careers, or contributes to local pride, or assists with increasing the audience for an artist or ensemble, builds the donor base, or stimulates opportunities or recruitment for winning artists and ensembles, then we have fulfilled our mission,” Katz said.
The American Prize is administered by Hat City Music Theater, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit performing arts organization based in Danbury, Connecticut.
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