WINNERS:

David Angelo Ciancaglini - Seikilos Quartet for Oboe, Bassoon, Marimba and Piano
Devin Farney - Fire and Ice for Soprano, Bassoon and Piano
Greg Steinke - Suspended for Bassoon and Strings

• World Premiere at the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Bassoon Symposium, Round Top, Texas: January 19th, 2014.

  • Bassoonists: Ben Coelho, Nathan Koch, and Susan Nelson

  • Rebecca Grimes, soprano; Steve Miahky and Christina McGann, violins; Matthew Daline, viola; Jacqueline Black, cello; Nermis Mieses, oboe; Jeff Barudin, marimba; Solungga Fang-Tzu Liu, piano

• Music published by Imagine Music Publishing

• The CD featuring the 2012 BCMCC Winning Works was released on MSR Classics in January 2015: Elements.

Click the pictures below to purchase sheet music or the CD!

HONORABLE MENTION: 

Clint Dawson – Burgundy in Blue for Bassoon, Violin, Viola, Double Bass, and Piano
Stephen Yip – Beauty of the Dark Shadows for Oboe, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, and Piano

About the Winners:

DAVID ANGELO CIANCAGLINI began his music career in high school, playing baritone saxophone in a “garage jazz band.” Ciancaglini describes his writing process at the time as “coming up with a central theme for a song, and messing around with it until he and his band mates were satisfied.” His writing career began in earnest while studying bassoon and contrabassoon performance at George Mason University in Virginia, where he studied composition and orchestration with Steve Antosca of the Verge Ensemble. Ciancaglini’s music has been performed throughout the United States and in Australia. He is currently based in Geneva, New York, surrounded by the Finger Lakes Wine Country.  www.cherryblossomoverture.com 

SEIKILOS QUARTET for Oboe, Bassoon, Marimba and Piano

Note from the composer: “Seikilos Quartet, my Opus 100, was composed specifically for the Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition. The title is an acknowledgment to my favorite Hellenistic (ancient Greek) composer. Seikilos is only known for his epitaph to his wife, which is often regarded as the oldest complete example of European music. Musically speaking, the work is in a fairly straightforward ‘ABCA’ form with a coda. I typically eschew harmonic structure in favor of incidental harmonies created by independent musical lines. I treat each instrument as a separate voice and as such you will hear many independent melodies weaving in and out of one another, as if the instruments are talking to one other, but at the same time to no one. The instrumentation was chosen with two thoughts in mind: two pairs of complementary timbres, one being the oboe and bassoon and the other the marimba and piano. The pairs are contrary, yet are able to enhance one another. Having drawn from Greek influences, modalities of Ionian, Dorian, Mixolydian and Aeolian are utilized in addition to major pentatonics. The ‘A’ sections and coda are metered in 2/4 + 3/8, and centered around the pitch C; the ‘B’ section is metered in 5/4, and centered around the pitch E; and the ‘C’ section is in 4/4 time with a pitch center on B and A concurrently.”

DEVIN FARNEY is an internationally active composer, pianist and songwriter. Farney and his music have been a part of the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France; the international new music festival in Darmstadt, Germany; the ANALOG Art’s Iron Composer competition; and others. His music has been commissioned by numerous conductors, performers and ensembles, and has received notable performances, honors and awards. Equally at home in the world of film music, Farney has composed music for independent filmmakers, playwrights and other artists. Currently based in San Francisco, he received a bachelor’s degree in 2006 from the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, studying under Francois Rose and Robert Coburn, and a master’s degree in 2009 from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying under Dan Becker. Farney is currently the staff composer at Brilliant Ideas.      www.devinfarney.com 

FIRE AND ICE for Soprano, Bassoon and Piano

Devin Farney was inspired by Robert Frost’s poem of the same title.

Fire and Ice

By Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

GREG A. STEINKE is a composer of chamber and symphonic music and an oboist specializing in contemporary music. Also a published author and an accomplished speaker on interdisciplinary arts, he has appeared across the United States and internationally. Now retired, he is the former Joseph Naumes Endowed Chair of Music and Art and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Marylhurst University in Oregon. He also served as Associate Director at the Ernest Bloch Music Festival (1993–97), Director of the Composers Symposium in Newport, Oregon (1990–97) and the National Chairman of the Society of Composers (1988–97). Dr. Steinke is the current national president of NACUSA and also serves on the board of the NACUSA Cascadia Chapter. www.gregasteinke.com 

SUSPENDED for Bassoon and Strings

Greg Steinke has long wanted to use the poem Suspended as a basis for a composition. The form

of the poem guides the form of the piece, which is in five sections of varying tempos. The piece is

dedicated to the memory of the victims and the hopes of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Suspended: K’OS NAAHAABII (a.k.a. DON JORDAN)

The sky is afire—

Flames leap upward

From horizon to horizon.

The roar seems beyond bearing

As the holocaust hangs suspended.

The snow covers the red earth

With searing embers flying

Before the ferocious winds.

Flames like the purple

Mountains encased in black shadows.

Like those shadows

Which lie between

The spoken word

And silence.

[from Notes from the Center of the Earth; ©1974 Blue Oak Press. Used By Permission]

2012 Judges

Carolyn Beck, bassoonist, University of Redlands

Michael Burns, bassoonist, UNCG School of Music, Yamaha Artist

Jefferson Campbell, bassoonist, University of Minnesota Duluth

Cynthia Cioffari, bassoonist, University of Akron, Columbus Symphony Orchestra

Monica Ellis, bassoonist, Imani Winds

Judith Farmer, bassoonist, University of Southern California

Lynn Hileman, bassoonist, West Virginia University, Dark in the Song

Jeffrey McCray, bassoonist, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Kathleen McLean, bassoonist, Indiana University, Yamaha Artist

Maya Stone, bassoonist, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra