LCCMF Composer-in-Residence, David Ludwig leads a week-long intensive seminar for four of the country's most promising young composers.  One of the highlights of the Festival is Sounding Board: readings of new works composed by members of the Young Composers' Seminar. Join us as LCCMF musicians introduce these pieces to the world on Saturday, August 28 at 3:00pm! A discussion with the composers follows.

Meet the 2010 LCCMF Young Composers

Molly Joyce is an eighteen year old composer from Pittsburgh, PA. She just received a 2010 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and was selected as a finalist for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts 2010 Young Arts Competition. Following her participation in the Young Arts Competition, she was nominated as a candidate for the Presidential Scholar in the Arts in which she became a Semifinalist for this honor. Additional awards include being named a first place winner in the Pikes Peak Young Composers Competition, twice named honorable mention for the International Association of Women in Music New Music Competition Ellen Taafe Zwilich Prize, and placing first in the Pennsylvania and Northeastern Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composers' Contest.

Dylan Mattingly began playing cello at the age of 5 and began writing music at the age of 7. He currently studies composition at the Bard College Conservatory of Music with George Tsontakis, Joan Tower, and Kyle Gann. His music has been performed in Sydney, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, and numerous other locations all over the world. He studied conducting with David Ramadanoff and Nathan Madsen, and worked with David Tcimpidis, Yiorgos Vassilandonakis, Katrina Wreede, and John Adams, as well as taken part in the John Adams Young Composer's Program.

Joshua Morris began seriously composing at the age of 12. Ensembles that have played his works include the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Vermont Youth Orchestra, and the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has also benefited from numerous performance opportunities provided by the Vermont MIDI Project, an online mentoring program for student composers. His principal composition teachers are David Ludwig and Erik Nielsen. Joshua started playing cello at age 9, and currently studies with Dieuwke Davydov. He was named principal cellist of the Vermont Youth Orchestra in 2008 and was recently awarded a fellowship to the 2010 National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute in Washington, D.C. In the spring of 2011, he will perform the first movement of the Dvořák Cello Concerto as a soloist with the Vermont Youth Orchestra under the direction of Ronald Braunstein. Joshua plans to study cello performance at a conservatory after high school, but still hopes to find time for writing music. He is a native of Saint Albans, Vermont.

Gabriella Smith is a young composer from the San Francisco Bay Area who currently attends The Curtis Institute of Music where she studies with David Ludwig. Gabriella was named a winner in the 2009 ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Competition and received the First Place Prize in the 2009 Pacific Musical Society Composition Competition. In June 2009, she received a commission from the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra and music director Benjamin Simon for a new piece, which was performed in June 2010 and taken on their domestic and international tours. During the summers of 2009 and 2010, she took part in the Young Artists Program at the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival. This summer she will also attend the Aspen Music Festival. Earlier this year, she received a commission for a piece for soprano and string quartet for the 2010 Monadnock Music Festival in collaboration with poet Marcia Falk. Gabriella began composing when she was 8. When not making music, she enjoys backpacking, birding, scuba diving in the beautiful kelp forests of the Channel Islands, Scottish dancing, and studying science, math, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

Comments from 2009

"We packed the halls for every astonishing concert; we listened intently to the words of the musicians and asked them questions; the Vermont Youth Orchestra and the Young Writers Project became integral members of the festival...Perhaps most memorable...were the incredibly refined and moving performances, but they were by no means the most important. The most important aspect of this festival was the ethic of community involvement that stood at the core of the festival's mission. As for the four young composers, no experience could possibly compare to the one we had at LCCMF. The experiences that we had with the musicians and audiences provided invaluable practical preparation for the many times we will call on these skills in our careers. Maybe the most memorable moment of the festival for us was the reading of our pieces...I will never forget the humility of the performers. Any of them could have been doing much more rewarding playing anywhere in the world, but they humbled themselves to play four brand new pieces by a set of eager, young composers." 

  -- David Bloom, 2009 Young Composer

2009 Young Composers

• David Bloom
• Daniel Shapiro
• Alyssa Weinberg
• Tim Woos