ROBERT
HELPS PRIZE, $10,000
2009 Robert Helps Prize Winner!
2010 ROBERT HELPS COMPETITION
Guidelines for
2010 Competition:
Instrumentation: Voice (tenor)
and Piano (with optional additional instrument)
Duration: 10-20 minutes.
Limitations: No prepared piano, however playing inside the piano is acceptable.
Prize: $10,000 will be awarded to the
composer of the winning composition
Performance: The winning composition will be performed in
2010 Robert Helps Festival. The winner of the Robert Helps Prize shall arrange to be present at the
performance.
Originality: The
work must be an original unpublished composition. The copyrights of the text
need to be secured
Deadline: Scores and application materials must be received on or before October
1, 2009. Results will be announced
on November 1,
2009.
Age
restriction: Only applicants who will not have reached the age
of 36 by February 14, 2010, will be considered.
How to apply: All materials must be anonymous
and marked only with a pseudonym of the composer’s choice.
Materials that have not had all identifiable markings removed will not
be accepted. The composer’s pseudonym
and the title of
the composition must be marked on each score and recording.
Submit:
1) Three copies of full
score
2) Recordings will be
accepted, but are not required (send either
3) A copy of birth
certificate or passport indicating that the applicant shall not have reached
the age of 36 by February 14, 2010
4) Application fee of $50
5) The application form
(print legibly)
Mail materials to this address:
Robert Helps Prize
Attn.: Scott Kluksdahl
College of Visual &
Performing Arts
One of the three submitted
copies will be retained and placed in the Robert Helps Archives of the
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The fifth
annual Robert Helps Composition Competition and Festival will take place in
February 2010, celebrating not only the life and
legacy of the late pianist-composer, but also the contributions of leading composers,
historians, theorists and musical thinkers on the American musical scene. In addition to incorporating
resident artists and scholars from the University of South Florida and the
region, the festival has featured guests including Vivian Perlis, David Del
Tredici, Augusta Read Thomas, Wes York, Richard Wernick, Benjamin C.S. Boyle,
ensembles including the Florida Orchestra, Richard Zielinski Singers, Chai
Found Music Workshop, and Helps Prize recipients Cheryl Frances Hoad,
Kyong-Mee Choi and Jerry Hui. The festival emphasizes
Robert Helps’ passion for educating emerging generations of musicians, and
focuses on interaction between students and master figures in modern American
music performance and thought. |
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Past
Festivals |
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The Fourth International Competition and Festival for Emerging Composers Age 35 and Under
In commemoration of the distinguished legacy of the eminent pianist and composer Robert Helps, the University of South Florida is pleased to announce the fourth international composition competition and festival for composers age 18-35.
Robert Helps (1928-2001) belonged to the small coterie of American new music pianists who emerged in the late forties and early fifties. He was also a highly original composer, whose work might be characterized as the missing link between the Columbia-Princeton atonal school and the “New Romanticism” movement that made tonality fashionable for composers in the 20th century’s final decades. As a much sought-after teacher, Helps embodied the legacy of his teacher Abby Whiteside, whose theories of musculature and physical rhythm stood apart from the mainstream of piano teaching in her day. Likewise, the influence of Roger Sessions on Helps’ career was early and lasting, and Helps was arguably the world’s leading exponent of his mentor’s piano music. From 1980 until his death from cancer at 73 in November 2001, Helps lived, taught, and made music in Tampa, where he was Professor of Music at the University of South Florida.* * *Jed Distler, Piano & Keyboard, Sept./Oct. 1996 |
Mission
of the Robert Helps Prize: The Robert Helps Composition
Competition and Festival are designed to encourage the development and
enhance the career opportunities of emerging young composers, honoring the
oeuvre and aesthetic of the late Robert Helps, while providing an annual
archival commemoration in celebration of the pianism and pedagogy of Helps,
the master teacher, as well as offering the University of South Florida as a
significant and valuable resource for composers and lovers of the music of
our time. The University of South
Florida School of Music provides an appropriate forum for an international
composition competition and festival commemorating and honoring the
distinguished legacy of the late pianist-composer Robert Helps, one of the
revered figures in American music and a beloved USF faculty member. Entering
its sixth decade, the University of South Florida School of Music continues
to be a beacon for leading composers, performers of new music, resident
composers, theorists and artist-faculty, and listeners – all of whom
participate in evolving, cutting-edge modernism. By establishing the Robert
Helps Competition and Festival, the University of South Florida offers a
valuable resource and provocative catalyst for thoughtful exchange in new
music. This university’s historic
commitment to modern works has generated literally thousands of performances,
commissions and premieres at the USF campus and throughout the Tampa
metropolitan area by resident artist-faculty and composers, guest artists and
students. This institution’s track record of presenting the most challenging
European and American literature spanning all genre through the 20th century
to the present is well known, and also extends to repertories of the diverse
geographies of Cuba, the Caribbean, Latin America, Korea, China, post-1980
Soviet, modern Baltic, and beyond. Composers, theorists,
musicologists and performers have come to depend on this research
institution’s innovative and creative work not only in performance, but also
in theoretical research that focuses on modern thought and emerging shifts of
approach in music. The University of South Florida is home to one of the most
complete electronic studios in the country (SYCOM), and has recently been
designated as the permanent home to the New York Bartok Archive and to the
Robert Helps Archive in the USF Library Special Collections. |
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Scott Kluksdahl, chair ROBERT HELPS COMPOSITION COMPETITION
HONORARY BOARD
BOARD
2009 COMPETITION JURY
SCHOOL OF MUSIC College of Visual & Performing Arts University of South Florida 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, FAH 110 Tampa, FL 33620-7350 (813) 974-2311 For more information about supporting the Robert Helps Composition Competition visit http://helpsprize.arts.usf.edu |
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