Reinaldo Moya Receives Inaugural Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award

Rockland, ME – The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation is pleased to award Reinaldo Moya from Northfield, MN its inaugural $20,000 Composer Award. With the Award, Moya will create a new work to be performed during the Bangor Symphony Orchestra’s 2020-2021 season. Moya was selected through a juried national competition and chosen from over 335 applicants.

Moya states, “I am humbled to be recognized as the first awardee of The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award. 2019 has been a good year for me as a composer. I have had some important premieres and performances, but it has also been a challenging time artistically. The birth of my son in January has been a great blessing and brought so much joy and happiness to our life, but the change has also meant that finding the time and energy to be creative has been difficult. This award provides me with encouragement and validation and tells me that I can continue to be an artist in addition to a father. I am very deeply thankful for the honor, and extremely excited to write a new work for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra.”

The jury was composed of distinguished professionals in the field: composer Nico Muhly, composer Gabriela Lena Frank and conductor David Alan Miller. Juror Nico Muhly observes, “I was immediately struck not just by how evocative Reinaldo Moya’s music is, but by how clear and direct the scores are. The music has a wonderful combination of subtlety and clarity, along with a strong sense of narrative. I can’t wait to see what he writes.”

“It was an arduous task to review the scores and recordings from 335 excellent composers and the Foundation is extremely grateful to the jurors for their time and expertise,” says Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Executive Director Donna McNeil. “We are thrilled to welcome our inaugural awardee in this field and look forward to bringing Reinaldo and his compositions to the residents of Maine. We are additionally grateful for the partnership of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of Executive Director Brian Hinrichs and Music Director Lucas Richman for their guidance throughout the process and their willingness to join us in the commission of a new work to be premiered in Bangor. None of this would have been possible without the generosity of our founders Joan Beauregard and John David Ellis and the vision of our board of directors.” Board President Ellen Golden adds, “The Ellis Beauregard Foundation is thrilled to announce the inaugural composer fellowship. Music was important to our founders, John David Ellis and Joan Beauregard, throughout their lives. This award continues their legacy in a significant and personal way while expanding opportunities for composers, musicians and audiences in Maine.”

Moya will participate in a week-long residency in Rockland and Bangor leading up to the premiere of the new work during the Bangor Symphony Orchestra’s 2020-2021 season, the orchestra’s 125th. Details of the full season and Moya’s premiere will be announced in April. Music Director Lucas Richman reflects, “Since his selection, I have very much enjoyed immersing myself in the sounds of Reinaldo Moya’s creative landscape. I look forward to our collaboration in bringing to life a brand new work which I’m sure will enchant our Maine audience as well as the global music community.”

About Reinaldo Moya

Reinaldo Moya is a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education system. Through El Sistema, he had access to musical training from an early age and was a founding member of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra touring throughout Europe, North and South America. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his music has been performed by The New Jersey Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Lakes Area Music Festival Orchestra, and the SimĂłn BolĂ­var Orchestra of Venezuela. Conductors and performers include Gemma New, Carlos Miguel Prieto, the Attacca Quartet, Latitude 49, Francesca Anderegg, Lysander Trio, and the Da Capo Chamber Players, among others.
His opera Memory Boy, with a libretto by Mark Campbell, was commissioned by the Minnesota Opera for its Project Opera and premiered in February of 2016. Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo (about the life, death and afterlife of a fictionalized Latin American dictator) have been performed in New York at Symphony Space and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.
He was the Composer-Residence at The Schubert Club in Minnesota from 2017-19, which led to the commissioning and premiere of his chamber opera Tienda in May 2019. The premiere was hailed for its “proud individuality… [and]textures of pulsing vibrancy, subtly shading harmonies to trace the fragile emotional arc of his central characters.” Reinaldo Moya is the recipient of the 2019 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer and the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House. Moya is Assistant Professor of Composition at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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’s mission is to provide powerful, enriching and diverse musical experiences through live concert performances and education programs of the highest quality. Led by Grammy Award-winning Music Director and Conductor Lucas Richman, the BSO today performs a robust mainstage season of Masterworks, Pops, and Young People’s concerts. Guided by a vision of serving the community in new and exciting ways, the BSO offers a variety of educational and community-focused programs, including the Bangor Symphony Youth Orchestras and a Music & Wellness Program. The BSO is a founding member of the Bangor Arts Exchange in downtown Bangor.