Kent State University’s Glauser School of Music held the second annual Roy Minoff Composition Competition in Spring 2024 with judging completed in July. Peter Fahey of Clonmel, Ireland, has been selected as the winner of the 2024 Roy Minoff Composition Competition.
The goal of this competition is to support the creation of a significant new work that will receive its world premiere at Kent State by the Glauser School of Music faculty in the fall of 2025. The commissioned piece, scored for clarinet, viola and piano, will be between 15 and 30 minutes.
The Roy Minoff Composition Competition is sponsored by Roy Minoff, a Cleveland-based philanthropist who attended Kent State and holds a passion for music and specifically composition. The commission award of $14,000 attracted significant international attention, serving to elevate composition and the School of Music at Kent State. The competition was judged anonymously and had no age limit and no entry fee.
Over 570 applications were submitted from all around the world with a diversity of music represented. The panel of judges included Kent State University’s Dr. Adam Roberts; Dr. Jon Forshee, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Dr. Sky Macklay, Peabody Conservatory; and Dr. Anthony Cheung, Brown University.
The panel also named five finalists:
Diego Gardiner; Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sehyung Kim; Graz, Austria
Lukas Janata; San Francisco, CA, USA
Michał Janocha; Poznań, Poland
Christopher Dietz; Perrysburg, OH, USA
For more information about the Kent State School of Music’s Roy Minoff Composition Competition, visit https://www.kent.edu/music/roy-minoff-composition-competition.
About Peter Fahey
Peter Fahey has been described as a composer of “alluring soundscapes” and “arresting moments” (The New York Times), a “rising-star composer” (NYC-ARTS) and “a composer who is full of effective ideas” (The Journal of Music). His music has been performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall and the National Concert Hall, Dublin and at festivals including Aspen, Gaudeamus Muziekweek and Festival Música Nova, Brazil by some of the most prominent performers of new music including the American Composers Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Continuum, Crash Ensemble, Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles, ensemble recherche, Ensemble SurPlus and Talea Ensemble; soloists have included Tony Arnold, Dario Calderone and Chi-Chen Wu. Recent and upcoming projects include new works for Alarm Will Sound, Dublin Sound Lab/Music Current Festival, Irish National Opera, Klangforum Wien (in association with PPCM Kunstuniversität Graz) and an ongoing, large-scale work for pianist Andrew Zhou commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Peter began studying music in Ireland followed by studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England; at Cornell University; and, as an exchange scholar, at Columbia University. He also participated in the Voix Nouvelles Composition Session at the Royaumont Foundation, France; the Summer Academy for Young Composers at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart; and the Aspen Music Festival and School Master Class Program. He has been awarded the American Composers Orchestra’s Underwood Commission, a Next Generation Award from the Arts Council of Ireland and the Franz Liszt Stipendium from the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar as well as fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and MacDowell. Beginning in autumn 2024, he is a Lecturer in Composition at Queen’s University Belfast.
About Kent State University’s Glauser School of Music
In the Glauser School of Music, faculty members train the next generation of music educators, scholars, performers and technology experts through immersive undergraduate and graduate programs that ignite passion and stimulate curiosity.
From Western classical and jazz to the many African and Asian traditions, the school’s nearly 30 ensembles annually welcome more than 500 music majors, nonmajors and community members to learn, celebrate and perform the diverse music the world has to offer. Every summer, the school hosts the Kent Blossom Music Festival in partnership with the Cleveland Orchestra to become a center of professional music training for over 40 highly skilled young artists from around the world.
For more information about Kent State’s School of Music, visit www.kent.edu/music.