2008 Sinquefield Composition Prize

Creating Original Music Project supports young composers

For the first time in its three-year history, the Sinquefield Composition Prize honors a composer who writes vocal music. Mark Woodward, a third-year graduate student in composition, School of Music, won the 2008 prize with Prelude in German Rhymes for two sopranos and piano.

Music students who win a Sinquefield award are both honored and challenged because their prize is a commission to write more music.

With benefactors Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield in the audience and the composer in the choir, the University Singers premiered Woodward’s commissioned work, Birds of Paradise, at the 2008 Chancellor’s Concert in Jesse Auditorium

The piece is the second movement of an unnamed choral work that Woodward says reflects the sounds of early 20th-century music by composers such as Maurice Ravel.

A soprano sings the solo in the first section, accompanied by the lower choral voices. The second section features a tenor soloist supported by the soprano and altos. In the third section, both soloists sing melodies against each other in what Woodward calls a "bed of sound from the choir."

Woodward is eager to dispel the notion that composer-theorists are inadequate musicians. He is a member of the University Singers and a soloist with the Missouri United Methodist Church in Columbia. He was a semi-finalist in the graduate division of the 2007 National Association of Teachers of Singing regional competition.

Previous winners of the Sinquefield Prize are Katie Andres and Patrick Dell. Andres’ commissioned piece, Concertino for Horn and Orchestra, made its debut at the 2007 Chancellor’s Concert; Dell wrote Eidolon for Wind Ensemble, which premiered at the 2006 Chancellor’s Concert.

The Sinquefield Composition Prize provides students the opportunity to write original works to be performed by MU's premier large ensembles. The contest is open to any MU undergraduate or graduate student and is judged by composers from outside the MU School of Music. The winning student is awarded a scholarship and cash prize.

Links:

School of Music
Creating Original Music Project