“Jennifer Higdon has been awarded the $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition for 2018,” writes Peter Dobrin in Thursday’s (4/12) Philadelphia Inquirer. The award is given annually by the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. “ ‘It’s pretty big,’ said [Higdon], 55. ‘I am having an unreal year with the Grammy [for her Viola Concerto], and some of the premieres that have gone pretty well.’ This season, Higdon’s Low Brass Concerto has been premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra, and other orchestras have performed her Tuba Concerto and Harp Concerto. Higdon has been so busy as a working composer that ‘this has been my year of not teaching at Curtis, I’ve been on the road so much,’ she said…. The Nemmers Prize comes with a performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and will bring Higdon to Northwestern to lead coaching sessions with ensembles and to conduct lessons and seminars with composition students … over the next two years. The award was established in 2003 and has previously gone to composers such as John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, John Luther Adams, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Steve Reich.”
Posted April 13, 2018
Jennifer Higdon photo by Karli Cadel
