The Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood, Florida and Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival and School have awarded the 2015 Hermitage Prize to composer Phillip Sink, a doctoral degree candidate in music composition at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University. Sink, a student at Aspen’s Composers’ Showcase this summer, received the award at Aspen. The award includes a stipend of $1,000 and an artist residency that can be taken over a two-year span at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. The jury for the award included Robert Spano, music director of the Aspen Festival and School; Alan Fletcher, Aspen’s president and CEO; AMFS composers in residence Sydney Hodkinson, Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, and George Tsontakis; and Bruce E. Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage. The Hermitage Artist Retreat is a nonprofit institution supporting professionals in visual art, music, and drama through artist residences and awards such as the Greenfield Prize, an annual $30,000 commission. The inaugural Hermitage Prize in 2013 went to Pacific Northwest-based composer Patrick Harlin, whose orchestral River of Doubt, completed during his Hermitage residency, was premiered in February 2015 by Florida’s Atlantic Classical Orchestra. The second Hermitage Prize in 2014 went to Los Angeles-based composer and pianist Thomas Kotcheff.
September 8, 2015
