Annual Young Composers Competition now accepting original compositions

Summit Music and Arts is again providing an opportunity for musicians and composers ages 10-18 residing in Clear Creek, Eagle, Grand, Lake, Park, Routt and Summit counties to enter one or more original compositions for critique, and if selected, the opportunity to perform their original composition on Thursday, April 28, at 6 p.m. at the Summit Middle School auditorium in Frisco. Deadline for entries is Friday, April 1. Full details, competition guidelines and regulations, and application form are available on http://www.summitmusicandarts.org. This program is made possible in part by funding from The Summit Foundation. There is no entry fee. For more information, please call Summit Music and Arts at (970) 389-5788.

The history of the competition began in 1995 as the Pikes Peak Young Composers Competition founded by Len Rhodes in response to many young musicians in Colorado who were seeking professional help and support with their original music. The organization began simply as a program offered through the Pikes Peak Library District in Colorado Springs. The first two years attracted entries from young composers primarily resident in Colorado Springs. However, the reputation grew significantly and it was not long before PPYC received entries from throughout the state of Colorado. As the result of a National Public Radio broadcast, awareness of PPYC extended throughout the U.S. and abroad. In particular, conservatories with junior department’s encouraged their students to submit entries to the competition. These conservatories included The Juilliard School in New York, as well as both the Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory in Boston. Entries were also received from the UK, mainland Europe and the Far East. Compositions originating through the competition have been performed on concert platforms throughout the world.

During the 17-year history, PPYC received over 1,200 entries. The composer workshops attracted over 200 young people; many returning each year. The value of such workshops offered the opportunity for young musicians of “like mind” to interact with their peers. The goals of the workshop were to encourage student confidence in their ability to “expose” their craft. Writing a piece of music is a deep, personal expression, very much along the lines of the visual artist. Sharing and performing their “creation” with their peers and an audience places many demands, emotional and practical, on the young composer. Winning pieces were performed at annual PPYC concerts. Len reminds us that “… there is an incredible excitement about hearing a piece of music for the first time — for the composer, as well as the performers and the audience.”

Author presentation at Next Page bookstore

Jo Ivester will be speaking at the Next Page Books & Nosh in Frisco Saturday, Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. about her book, “The Outskirts of Hope.” Iverster’s book is a memoir of her family’s time living in the segregated Mississippi Delta during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1967, when Iverster was 10 years old, her father moved their family to Mound Bayou, an all-black town about a hundred miles south of Memphis. There, he started a clinic, and her mother taught in the high school, where Ivester was the only white student at her junior high.

Using her mother’s journals along with memories from her childhood, Iverster has written about her family’s unusual and moving experience, focusing largely on her mother’s time in the classroom, where she became a loved yet controversial figure when she encouraged her students to stand up for their rights. Their time in Mississippi ended abruptly when — at 11 years old — she was assaulted by four of the local teenagers. After a 40 year absence, Ivester returned to Mound Bayou while writing “Outskirts,” to interview her mother’s colleagues and students, her father’s patients, her own friends, and one of her assailants. That trip provided the closing chapter of the memoir.

Art Forum looking for artists

The Art Forum, formerly the Summit County Arts Exhibit, has been hard at work putting together the current display — “Earth & Sky” — in the Art Forum display space, outside of the Frisco Library. Earth & Sky will be on display through mid-May. The organization is searching for artists to be a part of upcoming shows. If you have artwork that would fit the following themes and would like to be considered to have it displayed, please email lesliew@summitcountyco.gov, with photos of your pieces, and a brief description of why you would like to be a part of the display and what Summit County means to you.

Mid-May through August: (e)Motion: Submission deadline March 22.

September through December: Faces: Submission deadline June 21.

—Heather Jarvis