William Goldstein Scholarship Awarded To Nick DePinna

Ralph N. Jackson, President of the BMI Foundation, Inc., has announced that Nick DePinna, a graduate music student at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, is the first recipient of the BMI Foundation’s William Goldstein Scholarship.

The $5,000 award will be given every other year to an outstanding student composer studying at a U.S. music school chosen by the Foundation.

“We are delighted to make this new opportunity available to talented composers and equally pleased to be able to salute the extraordinary composer/songwriter William Goldstein,” said Jackson. “Mr. Goldstein, a true renaissance man, is a recording artist, composer, producer, teacher, philosopher and tech pioneer.” More information about Goldstein’s work may be found at www.williamgoldstein.com.

Nick DePinna is a composer, trombonist and graduate of the UCLA Ethnomusicology and Music departments, where he is currently a graduate student in music composition. As a composer, he has been a part of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Young Composers Program, as well as the SFJAZZ Young Composers Collective. Other credits include the films, Every Rose (2007), ChainSmoke (2008) and Escape (2009), as well as a number of arrangements and orchestrations for Kenny Burrell, Dave Bluefield, and the Gibson/Baldwin Grammy High School All-Stars, among others.