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2006
Barto Prize Winner Claude Baker
Before
a sellout crowd, Friday, March 24th, at the historic Bay State
Theater in Eustis, Eustis native and international pianist
Tzimon Barto presented the first Barto Prize for solo piano
composition to Dr. Claude Baker, professor of composition
at Indiana University’s School of Music.
Baker’s
winning composition, Flights of Passage,
was played by Barto in the second half of a brilliant concert
that featured works by Haydn, Schumann and Liszt. Barto also
played excerpts from his new recording of works by Jean Philippe
Rameau; A Basket of Wild Strawberries.
The pianist’s virtuosity brought the hometown audience
to its feet on several occasions.
The
prize winner attended the concert and received a trophy, a
check for $5,000 and the promise that Barto will play the
composition during his 2006-2007 concert tour.
Claude Baker
2006 winner of
The Barto Prize |
Claude
Baker attained his doctoral degree from the Eastman School
of Music, where his principal composition teachers were Samuel
Adler and Warren Benson. As a composer, Mr. Baker has received
a number of professional honors, including an Academy Award
in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; two
Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards; the Eastman-Leonard and George
Eastman Prizes; a “Manuel de Falla” Prize (Madrid);
BMI-SCA and ASCAP awards; commissions from the Fromm and Koussevitzky
Music Foundations; and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts,
the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation and the
state arts councils of Indiana, Kentucky and New York.
Among
the orchestras that have performed his music are those of
Saint Louis, San Francisco, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis
and Louisville, as well as the New York Philharmonic, the
National Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de RTV
Española and the Orquesta Nacional de España.
His works are published by MMB Music and Carl Fischer, and
are recorded on the ACA, Gasparo and Louisville First Edition
labels.
Mr.
Baker has served on the faculties of the University of Georgia
and the University of Louisville and has been a Visiting Professor
at the Eastman School of Music. He is currently Professor
of Composition in the School of Music at Indiana University,
Bloomington. At the beginning of the 1991-92 concert season,
he was appointed Composer-in-Residence of the Saint Louis
Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for eight years. In
recognition of his contributions to the St. Louis community
during that period, Mr. Baker was awarded an honorary doctorate
by the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1999.
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