Rhode Island Foundation Awards Providence Composers $25,000 Grants

Rhode Island Foundation Awards Providence Composers $25,000 Grants

Rhode Island composers Shawn Greenlee, Bevin Kelley and Peter Bussigel have been awarded $25,000 fellowships by the Rhode Island Foundation through the Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship Fund. The program is considered to be one of the largest no-strings-attached awards available to composers in the United States.

Since 2005, the fund has provided three artistic fellowships each year, rotating among composers, writers and visual artists on a three-year cycle. The $25,000 awards enable artists to concentrate time on the creative process, focus on personal or professional development, expand their body of work and explore new directions. With this latest round of grants, the Foundation has awarded $750,000 to 30 composers, writers and visual artists.

“These fellowships provide the considerable financial resources necessary to enable artists to invest in honing their craft,” said Daniel Kertzner, the Foundation’s vice president for grant programs. “They echo the value the MacColl Johnsons placed on the role of the arts in the community.”
 
The Winners
 

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Peter Bussigel of Providence, is an artist-in-residence and visiting lecturer at Brown University.  Bussigel will use his fellowship to cover the cost of materials for instrument construction, rehearsals with paid performers, and performances at festivals and other venues.

Shawn Greenlee of Providence is an assistant professor in the Division of Foundation Studies at the Rhode Island School of Design.  Greenlee will use his fellowship to travel to Seoul, Korea, to learn from prominent players, to workshop his compositions and to organize professional recordings and concert presentations of work in progress and finished pieces.

Bevin Kelley of Providence will use her fellowship to compose and perform several new works. Performances will be planned for various locations in Providence and throughout Rhode Island, and at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in Keene, NH. She will also bring the works to cities throughout the United States and internationally.

The recipients were chosen by a panel of four out-of-state jurors who are recognized practicing artists and arts professionals. Forty-six applications were reviewed based on the quality of the work, artistic development and creative contributions to the field of music composition, as well as the potential of the fellowship to advance the career of emerging to mid-career artists. Composers from all media and disciplines were eligible to apply.