News & Updates
The Manhattan School of Music, in collaboration with AOP First Chance, presents a staged reading of scenes from Vera, the new opera by composed by Matthew Barnson with libretto by Mark Sonnenblick. In an empty corner of the cosmos, a small government spacecraft hurtles towards the farside colony of Muriana. It transports Caroline, future ambassador to the colony, her husband Gregory, and their daughter Vera. A faulty communication transmitter, however, has forced Gregory to restart the System—the onboard computer that tends to their every need. Probably everything will be fine. www.aopopera.org/vera
The mission of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program is to support and enhance the creativity of artists by providing uninterrupted time for work, reflection, and collegial interaction in a setting of great natural beauty, and to preserve the land on which the Program is situated.
The Djerassi Resident Artists Program is internationally recognized as one of the eminent artist residency programs. Barnson was selected to be a resident artist at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program during the 2016 season. Over 900 candidates applied or were nominated for 66 residencies.
At some point, whether it be for reasons personal, professional, or purely psychological, most composers feel obliged to write a string quartet. Impressive is the composer who manages to unearth their own voice in such a largely excavated medium. Even more impressive is the composer who has the tenacity to develop that voice over the course of multiple works. New York-based composer Matthew Barnson has done just this, and his new album Sibyl Tones on Tzadik allows us to retrace his inventive excursions into a genre that is notoriously difficult to reinvent.
Matthew Barnson joins American Opera Projects as a fellow in the Composers & the Voice Program for 2015-16. The two-year fellowships, made possible through a generous grant by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, include a year of working with the company’s Resident Ensemble of Singers and Artistic Team at AOP’s home base in Fort Greene, Brooklyn followed by a year of continued promotion and development through AOP and its strategic partnerships.
In its ninety-first competition for the United States and Canada, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 173 Fellowships (including two joint Fellowships) to a diverse group of 175 scholars, artists, and scientists. Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of over 3,100 applicants.
Matthew Barnson, an assistant professor of composition in the music department, was awarded Stony Brook's AHLSS Faculty Research Program Grant.
As part of President Stanley's initiatives in the Arts, Humanities, and Lettered Social Sciences (AHLSS), This program provides one year of funding, at $20,000 each, to six graduate students in AHLSS, that will take them beyond their guaranteed funding. The fellows will teach two courses during the academic year. The two courses taught will create faculty release time to support research and development in the fellow's department or in a related discipline.
New Morse Code invited Matthew Barnson to take part in their 2015 Avaloch Farm New Music Initiative
The New Music Initiative invites composer/performer combinations developing new and collaborative work to apply to be part of an extraordinary experience. The Initiative is an organic outgrowth of the Avaloch “Bring a Composer” concept. It resonates with the essential nature of the Avaloch experience which includes the sharing of ideas, creating new networks, and catalyzing future collaborations.
The Copland House Residency Awards were inspired by Copland's exceptional legacy of support for his fellow composers. Typically, six to nine gifted, emerging or mid-career American composers each year are invited to reside, one at a time, at Rock Hill, Aaron Copland's restored, longtime New York home. There, they can focus on their creative work, free from the distractions of daily life and other professional responsibilities.
Kate Soper and I are teaching the composers at this terrific institute this summer. Please feel free to forward to students or colleagues interested. We're just about one month out from the Feb 15 application deadline for the first-ever Yarn/Wire/Institute at Stony Brook University! The program runs from July 6-15, and there are still spots open for piano, percussion, and composition. The application is FREE, and you can check out all the details at http://yarnwire.org/YWIBrochure.pdf.