Kenneth Frazzelle
Concert/Classical Composer

Kenneth Frazelle is a composer whose music, according to The San Francisco Examiner, "came straight from--and went straight to--the heart, an organ too seldom addressed by contemporary composers." Frazelle’s distinctive voice blends structural and tonal sophistication with a straightforward lyricism. He has been influenced not only by his study with the great modernist Roger Sessions, but also by the folk songs and fiddle tunes of his native North Carolina. His heartfelt compositions have included commissions from such renowned performers as Yo-Yo Ma and Dawn Upshaw, as well as a score for the internationally acclaimed dance work Still/Here.

Current projects include a concerto for wind quartet commissioned by the Phoenix Symphony, to be premiered at the orchestra’s Mozart Festival in February 2001. The Santa Rosa Symphony, where Frazelle has been artist-in-residence since 1997, has commissioned an orchestral work in celebration of the new millennium; it will open the Santa Rosa season in October 2000. In June 2000, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro premieres a new piano work, Appearances, as part of 2000 Piano Focus. Tenor Paul Sperry has commissioned a vocal work for his Joy in Singing project, and flutist Paula Robison has commissioned Frazelle to rework Blue Ridge Airs II, the concerto he wrote for her in 1991, as a work for flute and piano.

Frazelle was recently awarded a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an award given to young composers of exceptional gifts. He is artist-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as well as the Santa Rosa Symphony, and in 1998 was artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. In 1997 Frazelle was a recipient of the American Academy in Rome's Regional Visiting Artist Fellowship.

Kenneth Frazelle was born in Jacksonville, N.C. in 1955. He was a student of Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School, and attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he now teaches.

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Award Recipients for 1999-2000