American Award for Arlene Sierra
February 2007
Congratulations to Dr Arlene Sierra who has just been awarded a Charles Ives Fellowship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. These fellowships, worth $15,000, are awarded annually to composers of exceptional gifts.
This year, the AAAL announced fifteen recipients of awards in music, totalling $165,000. The winners were selected by a committee of Academy members: Robert Beaser (chairman), Martin Bresnick, John Corigliano, Shulamit Ran, Steve Reich, Gunther Schuller and Yehudi Wyner. The citation for Arlene Sierra reads: "Arlene Sierra's music is, by turns, urgent, poetic, evocative, and witty. She has a keen appreciation of instrumental sonorities and the inherent drama of successive musical atmospheres. Intriguing, passionate, mysterious, her most recent work, Cicada Shell, confidently announces the arrival of a significant composer."
The awards will be presented at the Academy's annual Ceremonial on 16 May in New York.