Composer Kevin Puts with Miró Quartet
The Excitement of Opening Night
Fri., October 12, 2007 / 8:00 PM

“Confidently mixing a variety of contemporary modes into a musical narrative that is pure Beethoven...”   -  San Francisco Chronicle

“An emerging young composer who is turning heads around the country.”
- The Cincinnati Enquirer

“...exhilarating and compelling...” - The New York Times

“...inventive, clever, haunting and poetic.”   - Los Angeles Times

Hailed by the press as “one of the best young composers in America”, KEVIN PUTS has had works commissioned and performed by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Known for his distinctive and richly colored musical voice, Mr. Puts has received many of today’s most prestigious honors and awards for composition.
 
As the Composer-in-Residence for the Fort Worth Symphony, Mr. Puts is writing a violin concerto to be premiered by concertmaster Michael Shih in April 2007. He has been selected as the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival’s 2007 American Composer-in-Residence, and will write a new orchestral piece to be premiered there by the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Puts is also the recipient of a Music Alive Residency with the Mobile Symphony, which will premiere a new work in February 2008, and he is writing a clarinet concerto for Bil Jackson and the Colorado Symphony, commissioned by Kathryn Gould and Meet the Composer, to be premiered in 2008-2009. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center gives the New York premiere of And Legions Will Rise, and the Baltimore Symphony performs River’s Rush, both in November 2006.
 
Chamber music projects include a string quartet for the Miro Quartet, commissioned by Chamber Music Monterrey, to be premiered in Fall 2007, and a commission from Music Accord for a piano trio, to be premiered by the Eroica Trio during the 2007-2008 season.
 
Mr. Puts’ 2005-2006 season included the premieres of three major orchestral works: a percussion concerto for Orange County’s Pacific Symphony and the Utah Symphony, premiered by Evelyn Glennie and performed again at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music; Sinfonia Concertante for five solo instruments and orchestra for the Minnesota Orchestra; and a cello concerto, Vision, commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and performed by Yo-Yo Ma in honor of David Zinman’s 70th birthday. The New York Philharmonic performed Network in November 2005, marking Mr. Puts’ debut with that orchestra.
 
Mr. Puts’ honors include the 2003 Benjamin H. Danks Award for Excellence in Orchestral Composition of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2001 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a 2001-2002 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and the 1999 Barlow International Prize for Orchestral Music. The first undergraduate to be awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Mr. Puts has won BMI’s 2001 Carlos Surinach Fund Commission, BMI’s 1998 William Schuman Prize, three student composer awards from BMI, and three grants from ASCAP. He was also the recipient of the 1996 BMI Young Musicians’ Foundation Orchestral Premiere. Mr. Puts was Young Concert Artists Composer-in-Residence from 1996-1998, and is still a member of YCA’s management roster.
 
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. Puts received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music, his Master’s Degree from Yale University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music. In the fall of 2006, he joined the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute.

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