BMI Honors Student Composers at 48th Annual Awards: Bios
Delvyn Case
BMI award-winning work: No Secret Hidden, for baritone and piano
Delvyn Case was born in New York City in 1974 and is the son of Delvyn and Carole Case of Cumberland Foreside, Maine. He received a B.A. degree summa cum laude in Music, with Distinction in the Major, from Yale University in 1997 and he is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Musical Composition at the University of Pennsylvania. He has studied composition with Ezra Laderman, James Primosch, Elliott Schwartz, David Rakowski, Sebastian Currier, Jay Reise and Jonathan Berger and conducting with David Hayes and Lanfranco Marcelletti. The winner of many awards and scholarships, he received the William Penn Fellowship, the Helen L. Weiss Prize, the 1995 Discover America Composition Competition and many, many others. As a conductor, Case has served as the Music Director and Conductor of the Yale Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus and the University of Pennsylvania Chamber Music Society. His BMI award-winning work was premiered in April 2000 at the College Music Society Northeast Chapter Meeting and was performed again in May 2000 at the Penn Composers Guild.
Jefferson Friedman
BMI award-winning work: String Quartet No. 2
Jefferson Friedman was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts in 1974 and is the son of Joanne Friedman of Marblehead, Massachusetts and Leonard Friedman of San Diego, California. He received a B.A. degree in music with honors from Columbia University in 1996 and is currently pursuing a M.M. degree in composition at The Juilliard School. He has studied composition with David Rakowski, Allen Anderson, Jonathan Kramer, George Tsontakis and John Corigliano and in high school, he studied both piano and clarinet at the New England Conservatory Extension Division. Friedman has had a number of performances at the Aspen Summer Music Festival, including the 1996 open reading of his chamber opera, The Gift of the Tongue, and his music will be performed again during the 2000 Aspen season by the Extension Ensemble. He has received a full fellowship to attend the 2000 Aspen Music Festival Composition Masterclass Program as well as the J. and B. Werter Scholarship and the Frances Goelet Scholarship at Juilliard. His BMI award-winning work was premiered by the Chiara Quartet on November 15, 1999 in New York.
Vivian Fung
BMI award-winning work: Night Songs, for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble
Vivian Fung was born Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1975 and is the daughter of Alfred and Maria Fung. She received a B.M. degree in 1996 and a M.M. degree in 1997 from The Juilliard School, where she is currently a D.M.A. candidate. Her composition teachers have included Robert Beaser and David Diamond and she has studied piano with Ernesto Lejano and Gyorgy Sandor and cello with Colin Ryan. She has received the Peter Mennin Prize from Juilliard, the Stephen Albert Award from the American Music Center, the Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction, an Alberta Foundation for the Arts Scholarship, MacDowell Colony and Yaddo Fellowships, Winspear Fund Grants, and many other awards and prizes. Commissions and performances have come from the Seattle Symphony, the New York Chamber Symphony, the Millennium Chamber Music Society, the Billings Symphony, the New England Philharmonic, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Fung is currently working on a song cycle for soprano Faith Esham. Her BMI award-winning work was premiered in 1999 by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, conducted by David Stock.
Evan Johnson
BMI award-winning work: Rose Window: Textural Variations, for two pianos
Evan Johnson was born in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and is the son of Barbara and Mark Johnson of Chevy Chase, Maryland. He received a high school diploma from the Sidwell Friends School in Washington in 1998 and is now studying musical composition at Yale University. His composition teachers include Matthew Suttor, John Halle, Kathryn Alexander and Haskell Small, with whom he has also studied piano. Johnson was the winner of the 1997 Sotireos Vlahopoulos Young Composers’ Prize for his piano trio, Via Crucis: a devotion in 14 parts, and he was also a semifinalist in the 1997 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and a recipient of a National Merit Scholarship in 1998. As a pianist he has performed at the Washington Conservatory of Music, including two Honors Recitals, and is particularly interested in performing contemporary repertoire and extended piano technique. Several of his works have been performed in New Haven and he performed the premiere his BMI award-winning work with pianist David Hughes at Yale University in December, 1999.
Tellef Johnson
BMI award-winning work: Quaternion, for four amplified guitars
Daniel D. Kellogg (2000 William Schuman Prize)
BMI award-winning work: Suite for Eleven Players, for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano, 2 violins, viola, violoncello and double bass
Daniel D. Kellogg was born in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1976 and is the son of Spen and Winifred Kellogg of Wilton, Connecticut. He received a B.M. degree in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, is currently pursuing a M.M. degree in composition at Yale University, and has also studied at Indiana University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Czech-American Summer Music Institute in Prague. His composition teachers include Don Freund, Ned Rorem and Joseph Schwantner. Kellogg’s music has been premiered by such groups as the President’s Own United States Marine Band, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, cellist Fred Sherry, eighth blackbird, and the Yale Pro Musica Singers. He is the recipient of a 1997 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1st Prize in the 1996 NACUSA annual Young Composers Competition, the 1999 Charles Miller - Alfredo Casella Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, and many others. His BMI award-winning work was premiered at the Curtis Institute of Music in February, 1999.
Nancy Jane Kho
BMI award-winning work: String Quartet No. 1
Nancy Jane Kho was born in Lakewood, California in 1977 and is the daughter of Ann and Benny Kho of Cerritos, California. She attended Northwestern University from 1995-1997 and is currently pursuing a B.M. degree in composition from Indiana University. Following her graduation from Indiana University, she plans to begin work on a M.M. degree in composition at Yale University. Kho has studied composition with Alan Stout, Marta Ptzazynska, Claude Baker, Don Freund and Marilyn Shrude and her music has been performed at numerous recitals at Indiana University and Northwestern University, at the Aspen Music Festival, and in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Kho is the winner of a Yale University Scholarship, the 1998 Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Award from the International Alliance of Women Composers and a Sigma Alpha Iota Scholarship. Her BMI award-winning work was premiered on her senior recital in April, 2000 in Bloomington.
Tom Osborne
BMI award-winning work: Sonata for Violin and Piano
Tom Osborne was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1978 and is the son of Dianne and D. Chris Osborne of Greenfield, Indiana. He received a B.M. degree in composition at Indiana University in May, 2000 and will pursue a M.M. degree in composition at Rice University in the September. He has studied composition with Don Freund, Marilyn Shrude, Steve Rouse, and Claude Baker. Osborne was a prize winner in the 1999 Indiana Music Teachers’ Association Composition Contest and has received numerous commissions from individual performers and ensembles, including Indiana University Professor of Flute, Thomas Robertello, the Park Tudor Singers of Indianapolis and the Dubinsky Quartet. Active as a pianist, he is currently a piano student of Jean-Louis Haguenauer. Osborne’s BMI award-winning work was premiered at the 1999 Midwest Composers Symposium with the composer at the piano, and has subsequently been performed twice at Indiana University, once in Atlanta and it will be performed in the summer, 2000 in Ireland.
DJ Sparr
BMI award-winning work: Guitar Folio, for guitar and chamber orchestra
DJ Sparr was born in Westminster, Maryland and is the son of Donald and Christina Sparr of Hampstead, Maryland. He received a B.M. degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music in 1997 and a M.M. degree in composition in 1999 from the University of Michigan, where he is currently pursuing a D.M.A. His composition teachers include John Yankee, Charles Fussell, Joseph Schwantner, Augusta Thomas, Christopher Rouse, Sydney Hodkinson, William Bolcom, Andrew Mead and Michael Daugherty. The winner of many awards and prizes, he has received the Grand Prize in the 1997 BMG/Williams College National Young Composers Competition, the 1996 and 1997 Howard Hanson Prize, the 1996 Composers Guild Award and a 1995 BMI Student Composer Award, among others. His music has been performed by the Berkshire Symphony, The Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Contemporary Music Forum, and on many occasions in Rochester and Ann Arbor. Sparr will perform as soloist in the premiere of his BMI award-winning work in December, 2000 with the University of Michigan Symphony. He is a two-time BMI Student Composer Award winner.
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