The winner of ClefWorks Composition Competition for 2010 was Carl Schimmel from Bloomington, Illinois. Carl’s work, The Pismirist’s Congeries, was selected by the Fireworks Ensemble from New York City. Fireworks performed the score in Montgomery during ClefWorks’ 2011 season, ClefWorks Ignited!
Carl rehearsed the work in Montgomery with Fireworks before presenting his original work to local audiences. Winner of Columbia University’s Joseph Bearns Prize and the 2010 Lee Etttelson Award, Carl has received honors and awards from many organizations, including the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, the Seoul International Composition Competition, the National Federation of Music Clubs, the New York Youth Symphony First Music Awards, NACWPI, SCI, and ASCAP.
He holds a Ph.D in Music Composition from Duke University, where he studied with Sydney Hodkinson, Stephen Jaffe, Anthony Kelley, and Scott Lindroth, and he earned a Master’s degree in composition from the Yale School of Music, where his teachers included Ezra Laderman, Martin Bresnick, Evan Ziporyn, and Ned Rorem. Carl has taught at the Yale School of Music, Duke University, Northern Illinois University, and Grinnell College. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Illinois State in Normal, Illinois, where he resides with his wife and two children. Fireworks also named Alexandra Gardner (Washington, D.C.) and Andrian Pertout (Australia) as second place finalists. Jonathan Newman (New York) was selected as the third place finalist, while Robert Honstein (New York) and Stephen Felgenbaum (Massachusetts) were named fourth place finalists.
