Fellowships awarded by Rhode Island Foundation to composers

PROVIDENCE – Three mid-career composers have been awarded $25,000 fellowships by the Rhode Island Foundation’s Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship Fund.
Recipients are composers Shawn Greenlee, Bevin Kelley and Peter Bussigel, all of Providence, the Foundation announced in an embargoed press release Friday.
The annual fellowships date back to 2005 and rotate yearly awards among composers, writers and visual artists.
The funds enable this year’s composers to concentrate on the creative process and personal or professional development as they expand and explore new directions.
Considered one of the largest “no-strings attached” awards available to composers in the country, the fund has awarded $750,000 to 30 artists in the three categories so far.
“These fellowships provide the considerable financial resources necessary to enable artists to invest in honing their craft,” said Daniel Kertzner, the Foundation’s vice president for grant programs. “They echo the value the MacColl Johnsons placed on the role of the arts in the community.”
The Johnsons were dedicated to the arts. Mrs. Johnson, who died in 1990, earned a degree in creative writing from Roger Williams College when she was 70. Mr. Johnson, who died in 1999, invented a new process for mixing metals in jewelry-making and then retired to become a full-time painter.
A panel of four out-of-state jurors who are recognized practicing artists and arts professionals selected fellows from 46 applications. Three finalists who received no cash award included Larry Mauk of Warren; Emlyn Addison and Chris Hampson, both of Providence.
An artist-in-residence and visiting lecturer at Brown University, Bussigel will use his fellowship to cover the cost of materials for instrument construction, rehearsals with paid performers and performances at festivals and other venues. His work explores “the musical spaces revealed by new technologies,” he said.
An assistant professor in the division of Foundation Studies at Rhode Island School of Design, Greenlee will use his fellowship to travel to Seoul, Korea, to learn from prominent players, to workshop his compositions and to organize professional recordings and concert presentations of work in progress and finished pieces. A portion of his fellowship was supported by the Madeline B. Standish Fund.
A freelance composer, sound design and audio producer, Kelley will use her fellowship to compose and perform several new works.
“This fellowship will allow me to take on more ambitious projects and to promote and establish performances of new works for my theatrical music-based electro-acoustic chamber ensemble, The Traveling Bubble Ensemble,” she said. “Now I can also realize proposed projects for both solo and collaborative works.”

No posts to display