Rockland, ME – The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation announced today a call for applications for the 2nd Annual Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award, with a deadline of August 15th. The awardee will receive a $20,000 commission to create a new orchestral work, to be performed by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra during its 2021-22 Season.
The jury will again be comprised of three leaders in the field of new music: celebrated composer Augusta Read Thomas, conductor/composer Paul Haas, and composer Anthony Davis, recipient of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Composers are encouraged to visit ellis-beauregardfoundation.org for details and to apply via Submittable. The awardee will be announced in December 2020.
Earlier this year, Reinaldo Moya was named the inaugural Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award recipient. The Bangor Symphony Orchestra will premiere a newly commissioned work by Moya at its March 14th, 2021 concert at the Collins Center for the Arts in Orono.
About the Jury
Opera News has called Anthony Davis “a national treasure” for his pioneering work in opera. His music has made an important contribution not only in opera, but in chamber, choral and orchestral music. He has been on the cutting edge of improvised music and Jazz for over three decades.  In 2020, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera, The Central Park Five.
Conductor and composer Paul Haas is currently music director of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and previously served as music director of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas. In 2006, he gained national prominence for producing the concert project REWIND with Anne Akiko Meyers. Haas went on to found Sympho,  an organization devoted to the creation and performance of symphonic experiences in unusual venues. One critic, writing in Time Out NY, called Haas “visionary.” Haas is a graduate of Yale University and The Juilliard School, where he studied conducting as a Bruno Walter Fellow with Otto-Werner Mueller.
The music of Augusta Read Thomas is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and colorful — “it is boldly considered music that celebrates the sound of the instruments and reaffirms the vitality of orchestral music” (Philadelphia Inquirer). A composer featured on a Grammy winning CD by Chanticleer and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Thomas’ impressive body of works “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). She is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at The University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997-2006).
About the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation
The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation provides resources for artists, engages with community and promotes the legacy of its founding artists, Joan Beauregard and John David Ellis. The vision of the Foundation is to encourage, expand and sustain the courageous and imaginative dialogue that is fundamental to the arts. The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation celebrates the value of art to transcend cultures and engage with diverse communities. Through its programs, the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation supports the exploration of the common ground that art occupies, the way it engages people, and its ability to reveal our shared human experience.
About the Bangor Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1896, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra provides powerful, enriching and diverse musical experiences through live concert performances and education programs of the highest quality. The BSO enters its 125th season led by Grammy Award-winning Music Director and Conductor Lucas Richman with a focus on serving the community in unique and exciting ways. In addition to its mainstage concerts, signature BSO programs include the Bangor Symphony Youth Orchestras, the Bangor Arts Exchange, and a Music and Wellness Program at Acadia and St. Joseph Hospitals. A wide variety of digital content released by the BSO during the Covid-19 pandemic can be found at bangorsymphony.org/music.