Competition Winners for 2001

Maurice Gardner, composer, was born in 1909 on the Lower East Side. He received his musical training at The Juilliard School, where he studied composition with Leopold Mannes. After a four-decade career in New York City as a composer for films, radio and television, Mr. Gardner continued to compose after moving to Florida in 1970. He was a three-time recipient of the State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship Award, and received numerous commissions from such performers and organizations as Jaime Laredo, Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, the Barlow Foundation, and the Pacifica Quartet. Mr. Gardner was writing a large sacred cantata for baritone and orchestra and a symphony for large orchestra at the time of his death in 2002 . The Competition Prize from The American Society for Jewish Music was his last major award.

Michael Karmon, composer, born in 1969, spent his formative years in Israel. He holds a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Minnesota . His compositions have been performed by such ensembles as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and he has received major fellowships and grants from the McKnight foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the American Composers Forum, the University of Minnesota and the American Music Center. His compositions sometimes touch on subjects related to Judaism: the song cycle I Never Saw Another Butterfly , which was performed at the Holocaust Memorial Museum In Washington, D.C; and Voices of Heritage , for which he was awarded an ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Award in 1999. A former guitarist, a number of Michael¹s chamber compositions are for the guitar: Four Tales: A Chamber Concerto for Guitar, which won a first prize in the 19th Annual National Association of Composers competition , and Frets vs. Fretless, which was recently performed by the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble. His music is published by Theodore Presser company. Current projects include an orchestral piece to be premiered d by the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra in April, 2002, and a guitar duo for a consortium of ensembles.