Current Winner
The nominators for the 2012 composition competition were William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Betsy Jolas, and Fred Lerdahl.
Kate Soper, born in 1981 in Michigan, is a composer and performer based in New York City. Her music has been played by the American Composers Orchestra, the BUTI Wind Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Linea, Dinosaur Annex, the SEM Ensemble, the Second Instrumental Unit, and the Due East Ensemble, among others. She has received awards from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Music Theory Society of New York State, and ASCAP. As a singer with experience in Western Classical and Indian Carnatik music, pop music, and improvisation, she performs frequently as a soprano in her own music and in the work of others. She received a Bachelor of Music from Rice University in 2003 and a D.M.A. with distinction in composition from Columbia University in 2011. She is managing director and vocalist of Wet Ink, a new music ensemble dedicated for performances of adventurous music across aesthetic boundaries. Current projects include commissions by the String Orchestra of Brooklyn and Line Upon Line Percussion, and the composition of an opera for three voices and electronics, to be presented by the Morningside Opera Company in spring 2013.