Press

Dominick DiOrio, assistant professor of choral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, is the recipient of an inaugural grant from the Ann Stookey Fund for New Music. Ann Stookey was a devoted choral singer and a strong advocate for new music before her death in 2012. The Fund was established in her name to support the commissioning, performance, and recording of new musical works, with a particular focus on choral music.

This grant will allow DiOrio to write a new work for NOTUS: Contemporary Vocal Ensemble for performance with the ensemble next year. The new 20 minute work will be a setting of Amy Lowell’s poem “Stravinsky’s Three Pieces ‘Grotesques’ for String Quartet” and will be scored for 24 singers, string quartet, organ, and percussion. The current plan is for this work to share the program with P.Q. Phan’s new “A Vietnam Requiem” in Spring of 2015.

This project is in line with DiOrio’s personal goal of commissioning new works for NOTUS, with a particular emphasis on new works by IU composition department faculty and students. This Spring will see the premiere of new commissioned works by faculty composer Aaron Travers, guest Zachary Wadsworth, and student composer Patricia Wallinga. It is DiOrio’s mission to commission a new work from every member of the Jacobs School composition faculty in the next few years.

The full press release can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/osc5ebk2szpt8xp/ASFNM-Press-Release-020214.pdf.

And a separate announcement and more information about the fund here: http://annstookeyfund.org/2014/02/02/asfnm-makes-five-choral-commissioning-grants-in-its-first-year/.