The Utah Arts Festival National Composers Commissioning Program is pleased to announce the following winners for 2008.

The Commission for Chamber Orchestra was awarded to Miguel Chuaqui of Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Commission of Chamber Ensemble was awarded to Keeril Makan of Cambridge, Massachusetts. We wish our heartfelt congratulations to both winners.

2008 Utah Arts Festival Commission for Orchestra - Miguel Chuaqui

Andrew Rindfleicsh, Artistic Director
John V. Costa and Henry Wolking, Program Directors

The 16th annual Utah Arts Festival Commission for Orchestra was awarded to Miguel Chuaqui.  The world premiere of his piece, Tiempo Norte, Tiempo Sur, will take place on Thursday, June 26, 2008, on the Festival Stage at 8:00 pm at the Utah Arts Festival.

American composer Miguel Chuaqui was born in 1964, in Berkeley, California, and he grew up in Chile.  His musical education began in Santiago, at the Escuela Moderna de Música, and continued later at the Universidad Católica de Chile.  In 1984 he moved back to California, and, after finishing college, he went on to pursue graduate studies in composition (1987-1994) under the guidance of Mr. Andrew Imbrie at the University of California at Berkeley.  He has also studied with John Thow and Edwin Dugger, and he was an associate composer at CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technologies) from 1994-1996.

Mr. Chuaqui’s music includes orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electro-acoustic works.  He has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress, the Utah Arts Council (NEA), and from ensembles such as Earplay (San Francisco), Parnassus (New York),  Ensamble Bartok (Santiago), and several other music organizations.  

His music is recorded on New World Records, Albany Records and Centaur Records.  It has been performed in the U.S. and abroad by ensembles such as Parnassus, Speculum Musicae, Earplay, Abramyan String Quartet, Left Coast Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, Octagon, New York's Riverside Symphony, Canyonlands Ensemble, and the Chilean ensembles Bartok and ANCC (Asociación Nacional de Compositores de Chile).  Honors include an Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an Aaron Copland Recording Grant, the Eisner Prize, a Nicola de Lorenzo Award, and induction into the National Association of Composers of Chile.  He is currently on the faculty of the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, where he teaches composition and electro-acoustic composition, and is Chair of the Composition Area.

2008 Utah Arts Festival Commission for Chamber Ensemble - Keeril Makan

Andrew Rindfleisch, Artistic Director
John V. Costa and Henry Wolking, Program Directors

The 3rd annual Utah Arts Festival Commission for Chamber Ensemble was awarded to Keeril Makan.  The world premiere of his piece will take place on Saturday, June 28, 2008, at 4:00 pm in the Library Auditorium at the Utah Arts Festival.

Working to create emotionally engaging musical experiences, American composer Keeril Makan combines an exploration of the rich detail inherent in sound with an unmistakably visceral energy. Drawing from such diverse sources as American folk music, the European avant-garde, Indian classical music, and minimalism, he synthesizes a music that, in its sheer intensity, thwarts assumptions about what is beautiful.

Mr. Makan has received commissions from ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Paul Dresher Electroacoustic Band, California EAR Unit, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, TimeTable Percussion, Del Sol String Quartet, and pianist Ivan Ili?, and his works have been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Either/Or, and Ensemble Nomad. Mr. Makan has participated in the International Gaudeamus New Music Week in Amsterdam, the Aspen Music Festival, Le Domaine Forget in Quebec, the MATA Festival in New York, and Voix Nouvelles in Royaumont, France. He was invited back to Royaumont to participate in Le Grand Atelier, during which he collaborated on a new work for dance. Carnegie Hall has commissioned him to write a work for the John Harbison/Dawn Upshaw Workshop for Composers and Singers. He has received prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and ASCAP, two Meet the Composer Commissioning Music/USA awards, and commissions from the Gerbode and Hewlett Foundations and the Fromm Music Foundation. As composer-in-residence with LEVYdance, a San Francisco–based modern dance group founded by choreographer Benjamin Levy, Mr. Makan has collaborated on two large-scale projects. Their first work together was commissioned by ODC Theater, and their second collaboration features music recorded by the Kronos Quartet. He is a featured composer at the Other Minds Festival 13.

Mr. Makan grew up in New Jersey of Indian and Russian-Jewish heritage. After initial musical studies in violin and oboe, he received degrees in composition and religion from Oberlin. He completed his PhD in composition at the University of California–Berkeley. Outside the US, Makan spent a year in Helsinki, Finland, at the Sibelius Academy on a Fulbright grant. Having been awarded the George Ladd Prix de Paris from the University of California, he also lived for two years in Paris, France.

Mr. Makan was previously on the faculty of the School of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.