Although the Competition jury had to pick only one winner—Vahram Sargsyan—they were enthusiastic about a number of other winners and chose three for honorable mention. Read on for more about these composers and their wonderful music.
Iman Habibi
Iman Habibi, BMUS, is an award-winning composer and pianist whose music has been performed by prestigious ensembles and performers such as musica intima, The Vancouver Bach Choir, DaCapo Chamber Choir, and soprano Simone Osborne; and has been workshoped by The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and The Aventa and Drosera ensembles. He has received numerous awards such as the second prize at The 2008 Vancouver Bach Choir’s national Competition for Large Choir Works for his work Erroneous Kudos and first prize for his work Black Riders at the 2009 Guelph Chamber Choir competition. His music and interviews are broadcast regularly on radios across North America, such as CBC radio 2, and WXQR. He has recently been commissioned to compose his first piano concerto for The Prince George Symphony Orchestra (PGSO). He will be appearing as the piano soloist to premiere this work with the PGSO in February 2010. He was the youngest classical composer, and the only student composer to be featured at BCScene festival in Ottawa. For the past five years, he has been performing at, and composing music for British Columbia’s most celebrated new music festival, Sonic Boom. He is currently finishing his masters degree in music composition at the University of British Columbia under the instruction of Dorothy Chang. Former teachers include Jeffrey Ryan, and Stephen Chatman.
Jocelyn Hagen, a native of Valley City, North Dakota, composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul). Her first forays into composition were via songwriting, and this is evident in her work. Her music is melodically driven, boldly beautiful, and intricately crafted. Since her graduation from St. Olaf College in 2003, Jocelyn has received over 30 commissions, 40 premieres, and 90 performances.
Jocelyn has received grants and awards from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, VocalEssence, the Yale Glee Club, the Lotte Lehman Foundation, the University of Minnesota, and the San Francisco Song Festival. Her commissions include the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, the North Dakota Music Teacher’s Association, Cantus, the St. Olaf Band, NDSU Gold Star Band, and the Copper Street Brass. She is currently Composer-in-Residence for Valley City State University, Shorter College in Rome, Georgia, as well as the group she sings in: The Singers – Minnesota Choral Artists. She founded Graphite Publishing, an online publishing company, in 2004 along with fellow composer Timothy C. Takach, and is also published by Boosey and Hawkes. Former teachers include Judith Lang Zaimont, Peter Hamlin, David Maslanka, Mary Ellen Childs, and Timothy Mahr. She completed her Masters in Composition at the University of Minnesota in 2006.
Steven Serpa
Steven Serpa came to music relatively late compared to many. He gave himself his first music lesson, a voice lesson, for his twentieth birthday. Since then he has received two bachelors degrees from the University of Rhode Island, one in vocal performance and one in musicology and a masters degree in early music performance from Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Serpa’s output is focused on vocal and chamber music. His art songs have been performed in the New England and Mid-Atlantic areas. His choral works have been taken up by churches and ensembles in the Boston and Providence areas. His music drama, Le Laüstic, based on Medieval French poetry, has been performed twice in the Boston area. A sonata he composed for solo flute, Pan Episodes, has been performed by flutists in Boston, Tennessee and recently in Alabama as part of the Mid-south Flute Association’s annual conference. Other recent works include a one-act opera based on a fable by Jean de la Fontaine, Thyrsis & Amaranth, and a work commissioned for performance at Boston University for viola and piano, Alto-fantasie … il n’y avait rien d’aussi rouge … Recently, he collaborated with North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam on Heaven’s Birds: Lament and Song, a cantata to commemorate World AIDS Day 2008 in a benefit concert for the AIDS Action Committee of Boston. He has worked under Geoffrey Gibbs and Eliane Aberdam at the University of Rhode Island, Paul Brust at Longy School of Music and is currently studying composition under Tom Cipullo in New York City.
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