Juilliard Dean claims American Academy award
NewsThe Juilliard School’s Dean and Director of Music, David Serkin Ludwig, is one of four composers to receive $10,000 music awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The others are Eve Beglarian, Nicole Mitchell and Roscoe Mitchell. In addition to the awards, each receives a further $10,000 towards a recording of their work.
Two Goddard Lieberson Fellowships of $15,000 each are awarded to Zosha Di Castri and Andy Akiho.
Four of the six winners are associated with New York City. In actual practice, the name of the organization is the Northeastern American Academy of Art. Yes, there are exceptions, but the AAoA reflects the same Northeastern hegemony in contemporary classical music as the rest of the field.
From a cultural perspective, the USA should be broken into about nine separate entities with their own autonomous arts worlds since culture is by nature inherently local. Of course, this will never happen since these regions would soon demand other forms of autonomy as well. As the philosopher Antonio Gramsci noted, the purpose of the arts is to establish and defend the hegemony of the monied elite, and they are overwhelmingly based mostly in the Northeast.
The map of the US Census Bureau accurately shows these cultural regions. The region labelled Mid Atlantic dominates all the other regions: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf
This idea of regional autonomy is obviously radical and dangerous. Another problem is that if these nine regions became autonomous, a couple might eventually gravitate toward of form of government like apartheid South Africa.
Is there a grant to composers not to write any more stuff?
I always wonder what contemporary composers listen to in the privacy of their own homes over a glass of chilled white wine. (I am convinced it’s Kenny G.)
Is it weird that the Dean at one of the largest arts organizations in the world (budget size) who comes from musical royalty to be competing for small prizes against emerging professionals? It should seem weird to all of us.
Truth! Thank you for saying what everyone is thinking.
Heard the principal bassoon of the Milwaukee Symphony perform his bassoon concerto (which she helped inspire) a few weeks ago, which will serve as the piece’s premiere recording (not commercial). It was a great piece, Debussy-inspired, very lyrical but not without moments of true virtuosity.
Serkin™️
Rudolph leads the sleigh, carrying many gifts.
What’s the big deal? David Ludwig (until he decided adding Serkin to his name for PR purposes) is an administrator, first, and a composer, second. His music is nothing to write home about.