Congratulations to Chelsea Komschlies (current PhD), winner of the 2020-2021 recipient of the Andrew Svoboda Prize for Orchestral Composition! We asked Chelsea a few questions to get to know more about her and the compositions she creates. Discover how she uses crossmodal correspondences in her work, where some of her references might originate, as well as some prime advice for budding composers.
We hear many of those stories from the students writing to us, thanking the donors who made their scholarships possible. One shining example is composer and Appleton native Chelsea Komschlies, who is making good on her Miller Family Music Education Scholarship, a fund within the Community Foundation.
The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) have announced that Chelsea Komschlies, a composition student at the Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies at the AMFS, has been awarded the 2019 Hermitage Prize. She receives a six-week residency at the Hermitage, along with a $1,000 stipend for travel and food expenses. Komschlies was selected by a jury that included Alan Fletcher, AMFS president and CEO of the AMFS; Robert Spano, music director at the AMFS and the Atlanta Symphony; and Chris Theofanidis, a composition faculty member at AMFS. All three are Hermitage fellows. First awarded in 2013, the Hermitage Prize is given to a promising composer who is enrolled as a composition student at AMFS. The residency is the only one the Hermitage grants to an artist who is just embarking on his or her career.
First awarded in 2013, the Hermitage Prize is given to a promising composer who is enrolled as a composition student at AMFS. Bruce Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage, said the residency is the only one the Hermitage grants to an artist who is just embarking on his or her career. “These students are already on their way to impressive careers with a multitude of recognized work under their belts,” he said, and added that, as “as the first female composer to be awarded the Hermitage Prize in Aspen, we look forward to having Chelsea on our campus and sharing her in a public program with our community.”
The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) announce that Chelsea Komschlies, a composition student at the Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies at the AMFS, has been awarded the 2019 Hermitage Prize. Komschlies was selected by a jury that included Alan Fletcher, AMFS president and CEO of the AMFS; Robert Spano, music director at the AMFS and the Atlanta Symphony; and Chris Theofanidis, a composition faculty member at AMFS.
The daughter of an artist, Komschlies grew up in Appleton, WI creating and loving all sorts of visual art, and still enjoys drawing, digital painting, and creating hand-sculpted jewelry. She often uses real or imagined images as inspiration for her works, hoping that listeners will “make deep, instinctual associations with her music, be they emotional, visual, or otherwise abstract.”
BY AARON HAY
“Thanks for joining me this evening, I’m Aaron Hay. You’re listening to Mizzou New Music on Classical 90.5 FM. This week we’re continuing our look at the resident composers for this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival. Joining me by phone is Chelsea Komschlies. Chelsea, thanks for joining us.”
As a child I loved spending hours poring over challenging puzzles. When I was about thirteen, I'd just read and watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and was obsessed, and I remember I was playing the melody from the "Concerning Hobbits" cue and figured, ok, it can't be that hard to figure out the chords, and I just slowly by trial and error figured it out one note at a time, then did the same with all the other cues from the trilogy.
Cortlandt Manor, NY – Copland House has announced the six Fellows selected to participate in CULTIVATE 2019, its acclaimed, annual emerging composers institute. The composers chosen are Flannery Cunningham 27 (New York, NY); Chelsea Komschlies , 27 (Calgary, Alberta); Charles Peck , 31 (Philadelphia, PA); Igor Santos , 33 (Chicago, IL); Nina Shekar , 23 (Los Angeles, CA); and Sam Yulsman , 28 (New York, NY). Will Healy , 28 (New York, NY) was selected as an Alternate.
BY KEN HERMAN
I admired the many engaging flourishes and rigorously imaginative duo writing in Komschlies’s “Steam,” a four-movement suite for clarinet and flute performed with crisp discipline by Beth Ross Buckley and Renk. The composer displayed the wit and drive of J. S. Bach’s two-part inventions without depending on the easy cliches of any of the ubiquitous neo-Baroque styles of the last century. If only Paul Hindemith’s numerous dry-as-dust instrumental sonatas exhibited Komschlies’s ingratiating allure.
BY BRAD TURNER
Most contemporary composers rarely hear their music performed live and often have no control over how it's presented in concert. Composer & Curator asks an artist to design a dream program around a piece they've written and explain their selections. Her eclectic selections include music by J.S. Bach, Iannis Xenakis, Evan Chambers and Alfred Schnittke, as well as songs by P.J. Harvey and Tool.
