Composer Nina Shekhar Receives The ASCAP Foundation Nissim Prize
Paul Williams, President of The ASCAP Foundation, announces that Nina Shekhar has been named the recipient of the 41st annual ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize. Selected by a panel of conductors, Shekhar was honored for Lumina, a c. 11-minute work for orchestra, and awarded a prize of $5,000.
Dr. Rudolf Nissim, former head of ASCAP s International Department and a devoted friend of contemporary composers, established this annual prize through a bequest to The ASCAP Foundation. The Prize is presented annually to an ASCAP concert composer for a work requiring a conductor that has not been performed professionally. A jury of three conductors selects the winning score.
Imagine you are a young singer, hoping for a career in opera and you ve worked hard enough, been good enough and had enough stamina to reach the finalist stage of a competition where you ll be performing before a theater jammed with opera lovers.
But now instead of facing a live audience at your big moment, you are instead greeted with facsimiles of people: 2D cardboard cutouts filling the seats as you sing two arias in the course of the evening before a panel of judges. The rewards are still the same recognition, prize money, possible accepted into a respected training program but the ambience, well it ll be a bit different.