Olly Wilson Named Honorary Member For 2015 The Society for American Music is very pleased to announce that Olly Wilson will be our Honorary Member at the annual meeting to be held in Sacramento in 2015. Olly Wilson has distinguished himself in multiple fields. He is currently emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught composition between 1970 and 2002. He held many important and prestigious positions at Berkeley, including chair of the Music Department (1993-97), the Chambers Endowed Professorship (1995-1998), and Assistant Chancellor for International Affairs (1986-90). Before that, he taught at the Florida A&M University (1960-62, 1964-5), and Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (1965-70). He cofounded the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players to perform contemporary music in 1970. He received commissions from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1971-72), the coveted Elise Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center (1992), the Rome Prize (2008), and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1995), among many others. He was Resident Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Bellagio, Italy (1991), and served as the Fromm Foundation Composer in Residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2008. As a composer, his style was marked by the innovative synthesis of modernist techniques and African American traditional music. His music has been published by Gunmar Music (a division of G. Schirmer) and recorded by major labels such as Columbia, CRI, New World, Desto, and Turnabout. As a scholar, Wilson published groundbreaking work theorizing the relationship between African American music and West African music. His detailed knowledge of both types of music, combined with a composer’s sensitivity to sound and musical style, enabled him to make significant advances on the earlier work of scholars. His articles are still cited frequently and considered foundational in the scholarship of African American music. Information about the honorary member induction ceremony will be forthcoming! american-music.org/
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 21:55:43 +0000
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