| 2011 Composition Contest Winners |
 Winner of the 2011 ‘James and Paula Nelson Young Composers Competition’, Egemen Kesikli is an emerging ASCAP composer honored with numerous performances across the United States, by ensembles including the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and the NSHMI Wind Ensemble. Born in 1989, Turkey, Kesikli began his music life by playing mandolin at the age of 9, but he did not consider music as one of his vital interests until he was admitted to the music department of “TEVITOL High School for the Gifted and Talented”. As a junior in high school, Kesikli started to study piano with Birsen Ulucan, and composition with Mete Sakpinar and Ozkan Manav; and with Michael McBride in Northwestern University in the summer of 2007. Kesikli is now pursuing a degree in Bachelor of Music in St. Olaf College, studying composition with Dr. Justin Merritt and Dr. Timothy Mahr, with the financial and moral support of the world-renowned pianists Guher & Suher Pekinel. |
 Roger Zare has been praised for his “enviable grasp of orchestration” (New York Times) and for writing music with “formal clarity and an alluringly mercurial surface.” He was born in Sarasota, FL, and has written for a wide variety of ensembles. His works have been performed across the United States by such ensembles as the American Composers Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Sarasota Orchestra, the Omaha Symphony, the Aspen Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, and the New York Youth Symphony. An award winning composer, Zare has received the ASCAP Nissim Prize, two BMI Student Composer Awards, the 2008 American Composers Orchestra Underwood Commission, and many other regional and national honors. He was composer in residence at the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington in 2010. Zare is currently pursuing his DMA at the University of Michigan, where he has studied with Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty and Paul Schoenfield. |
Belvedere Chamber Festival, 1794 Carr Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104, 901-278-2699
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