Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, associate professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music, has been awarded the 2007 Barlow Prize to compose a new work for percussion ensemble. He was selected from 327 composer applications submitted from more than two dozen countries.
As the winning composer, Sanchez-Gutierrez will receive a $10,000 commission from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for a major new work that is scheduled receive its premiere in 2009 in Toronto, Stockholm, and New York City.
The music of Sanchez-Gutierrrez has been described as “vigorously organized and highly visceral . . . neither eclectic nor post-modern, nor owing allegiance to any passing fashion.” He has composed works for choir, orchestra and ensembles, film, theater, and television that are performed and recorded frequently in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
The composer’s numerous fellowships and awards have included first prize at the 2004 Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Composer Competition, the Lee Ettelson Composition Award, the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Mozart Medal from the governments of Mexico and Austria, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.
Sanchez-Gutierrez was composer-in-residence at the Morelia International New Music Festival in Mexico in June and will serve as composer-in-residence at the Seattle’s SLAM Festival Sept. 27 to 29. He also is composer-in-residence for the Binghamton Philharmonic’s 2007-2008 season.
Born in Mexico City in 1964, Sanchez-Gutierrez received his undergraduate degree from Guadalajara University. He holds master’s degrees from Yale University and the Peabody Conservatory and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1996. He taught at Yale and San Francisco State University before joining the faculty of the Eastman School in 2003.
Sanchez-Gutierrez is a member of Mexico’s prestigious Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte and was named Person of the Year 2000 by the Mexican daily Público.
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