Steven Burke and James Matheson, students in the Doctor of Musical Arts Program at Cornell, have been selected to receive the 1997 American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Damon Lee of Lansing, Mich., who will begin studies this fall in Cornell's graduate program in music composition, also was selected as an ASCAP Foundation award winner.
Twenty individuals in all were honored by the ASCAP Foundation program, which provides grants to composers under the age of 30 whose works are recognized through a national competition. The awards, $1,000 cash grants, are named for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Morton Gould, who served as ASCAP president from 1986 to 1994.
Steven Burke, who began his D.M.A. studies at Cornell in 1994, holds a bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College (1990) and a master's degree from the Yale School of Music (1994), where he studied under Jacob Druckman and Martin Bresnick. His composition Devil's Tails, inspired by what the composer calls "snow tornadoes," was commissioned by the Cornell Chamber Winds and performed by the group last month in Bailey Hall. Burke currently is at work on a piece commissioned by the ASCAP Foundation and the Seattle Symphony.
Matheson, who entered Cornell's D.M.A. program in 1993, holds a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College (1992). His work Sleep, a concerto for violin and chamber orchestra in three movements, was premiered by the Festival Chamber Orchestra and Chicago Symphony violinist Baird Dodge last March in Barnes Hall. While he was a student at Swarthmore, Matheson wrote Nonet, which has been performed in Philadelphia and Russia by Orchestra 2001, a professional contemporary music ensemble.
Lee will enter Cornell with a bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (1997). His Fantasy for Solo Violin and Orchestra was recorded last fall by the Eastman Philharmonic under the direction of David Effron, and his Saxophone Concerto was performed by the Eastman Symphony Orchestra earlier this year. He is a past winner of the Oberlin Composition Competition and a scholarship recipient for the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France.