COMPETITION
H. Leslie Adams (1932–2024)
H. Leslie Adams was the winner of the 2015 Cleveland Arts Prize. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he attended school in California, and served many years as a choral conductor, show musical director, and educator, before becoming a composer full time in 1979.
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Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Samuel Barber is regarded as one of the most significant American composers of the 20th century and is particularly renowned for his lyrical, emotionally accessible musical language. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, he showed musical talent from an early age and studied at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he later taught himself.
Amy Beach (1867-1944)
The composer and pianist Amy Beach is recognised as a leading figure in American music, the first woman to gain success with large-scale musical forms. She came from a prosperous family in New Hampshire. Her mother Clara Cheney was a talented amateur singer and pianist. Beach showed exceptional musical promise at an early age and was performing canonic piano repertoire as well as her own music by the age of seven.
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Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Aaron Copland is regarded as one of the most significant composers of the United States and played a decisive role in shaping a distinctive ‘American’ sound in 20th-century classical music. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants, he studied first in the USA and later in Paris under the renowned composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. This training had a lasting influence on his style.
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Jake Heggie (*1961)
American composer Jake Heggie is best known for Dead Man Walking (2000), the most widely performed new opera of the last 25 years, with a libretto by Terrence McNally, and his critically acclaimed operas Moby-Dick (2010), Three Decembers (2008), Intelligence (2023), and It’s a Wonderful Life (2016), all with libretti by Gene Scheer. In addition to 10 full-length operas and numerous one-acts, Heggie has composed more than 300 art songs, as well as concerti, chamber music, choral, and orchestral works. His compositions have been performed on five continents, and he regularly collaborates with some of the world’s most beloved artists as both composer and pianist.
Libby Larsen (*1950)
Libby Larsen (b. 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most performed living composers. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2024), she has composed over 500 works including orchestra, opera, vocal and chamber music, symphonic winds, and band. Her work is widely recorded. An advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum.
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John Musto (*1954)
Composer and pianist John Musto's activities encompass orchestral, operatic, instrumental, chamber and vocal music, and music for film and television. His music embraces many strains of contemporary American concert music, enriched by sophisticated inspirations from jazz, ragtime and the blues.
Robert Owens (1925-2017)
Robert Owens, a native of Denison, Texas, was known as one of the leading names in the late 20th and early 21st century within the genre of African American art song. He gained notoriety as a concert pianist, vocal accompanist, composer, and stage and television director. Learning to play the piano at a young age from his mother, Owens composed his first piano and art songs in his high school years and continued to develop his talent under Genevieve Longrus and Dora O’Neill.
