IAWM’s concert in October celebrates vocal and choral music. The works can be heard in University at Buffalo, Buffalo New York, USA on October 27th 7:30pm in Lippes Concert Hall, Slee Hall. The works will be performed by University at Buffalo Chamber Singers, University at Buffalo Students and Faculty and the Buffalo High School Girlchoir.

We have nine winners for the 2026 Call for works, three for SATB choir and subset, one for girl’s choir and five for vocal performers and with different instrumentations. A review of the concert will be in issue # 4 of the IAWM journal in November. 

 

IAWM 2026 Annual Concert Call for Scores Winners

Soldier’s Prayer – Anne Kilstofte

Silver Apples of the Moon – Kari Cruver Medina

Moonrise – Lucy Shirley

Urgent Earth – Stefania de Kenessey

Love Songs for Ada – Sabrina Clarke

Flame and shadow – Cara Haxo

Home Decor and the CDC – Beth Wiemann

From Eve’s Perspective – Faye-Ellen Silverman

Requiescant – Melika M. Fitzhugh

 

The Winners’ Biographies

 

Dr. Anne Kilstofte has received professional accolades and honors while finishing her doctorate at the University of Minnesota. She received two McKnight Fellowships and two Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships before receiving a string of prestigious fellowships, one was the coveted Bush Artist Fellowship in 1997. She was one of the first composers chosen for the Faith Partners Composer Residency Program (for which she has been selected twice) and now has written approximately fifty sacred works for other church residency programs in Arizona and Minnesota. She was twice commissioned by The Dale Warland Singers, once for the Minnesota Christmas Carols, and for the Choral Ventures Program – which, in later years, she helped curate. She was composer-in-residence with the Stockholm String Quartet of Stockholm, Sweden, who commissioned and premiered two string quartets of her, the second, a song cycle for baritone and quartet titled, Songs of the Night Wind, and received a Jerome Grant for her work in Sweden. She also was composer-inresidence at Hamline University, where she was an assistant professor for twelve years. Then in 2004, she received a Fulbright Senior Scholar to compose, research, and teach at the Estonian Academy of Music in Tallinn, Estonia for an extended year (Senior designates distinction in one’s field). Within two years of her return from Europe, her family moved to Arizona where her husband accepted a position as Director of Music at a Lutheran church in the larger Phoenix area. Closing out her composer-residency in Minnesota, Kilstofte was hired at Glendale Community College to teach part-time and has been teaching there for seventeen years, continuing with composer residencies, and volunteering with children with special needs at an Equestrian Center in Cave Creek. Dr. Kilstofte served on the board and executive committees of the American Composers Forum, Society of Composers, Incorporated (SCI), and the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), and currently serves on the Fulbright Association Arizona (FAAZ) board of directors. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Theory/Composition from the University of Minnesota, an M.M. in Music Composition, and a B.S.M.M. in Sound Technology from the University of Colorado.

 

Kari Cruver Medina, Seattle-based composer and pianist, Kari Cruver Medina grew up on the lively shores of Puget Sound surrounded by the music of the natural world. Literature, history, faith, folklore, and the intersection of Art and culture have always inspired her. These interests reflect in engaging music that is marinated in an imaginative, often whimsical blend of narrative and nature. She likes to laugh, and that reflects in her music too. Medina’s award-winning pieces have been performed and premiered internationally and span a broad swath of stylistic traditions: from art song and choral works to chamber and orchestral music. A true child of the Pacific Northwest, her BA and MA are from UW and WSU.When not composing you will find her working in her garden or tramping through the woods: a rake, a book of poetry, and a good cup of coffee close at hand. She loves to travel and savors making music with friends across the globe. detailed bio: https://www.karicruvermedina.com/aboutkaricruvermedina

 

Lucy Shirley is a composer interested in language and memory. Her works are polystylistic and playful, often focusing on aspects of the human voice. Shirley’s earliest influences come from long car rides as a kid listening to her mom’s mixtapes of showtunes and classic Americana, and she still frequently incorporates aspects of theatricality and folk melody into her current practice. She has worked with artists like JACK Quartet, the mdi ensemble, LIGAMENT, The Crossing, The Imani Winds, Mammoth Trio, and Carrie Koffman, and her music has been featured at festivals such as June in Buffalo, the Norfolk New Music Workshop, the Napoleon Electronic Music Festival, the World Saxophone Congress, University of Georgia’s New Music Festival, and HighSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy. Shirley’s awards include selection in IAWM’s 2024 Call for Scores, SOLI Chamber Ensemble’s 30x30x30 Project, and a 2022 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Shirley holds degrees from the the University of Indianapolis, where she studied with John Berners, and the University of MissouriKansas City, where she studied with Chen Yi, Yotam Haber, and Zhou Long. Shirley is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Iowa, where she studies with David Gompper.

 

Stefania DE KENESSEY’s music has been performed throughout New York City, from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to Joe’s Pub and La Mama; internationally, it has been heard in more than 35 countries, from Australia to Venezuela. Her output ranges from choral, vocal and operatic pieces to chamber and orchestral work, as well as scores for film, theater and dance. De Kenessey is the inaugural Composer-In-Residence for the Dal Sogno Ensemble, which commissioned “The Names of Woman”, a cantata dedicated to women who have been unjustly neglected by history; the piece premiered at Bargemusic in 2024 and since then has been presented at several venues in the metropolitan area. De Kenessey is also the first Composer-In-Residence for the Accord Treble Choir, which commissioned and premiered her “Urgent Earth” (2024), feminist eco-cantata about the climate change crisis, setting a text by the noted Wiccan poet Annie Finch. She has collaborated regularly with the all-female Ariel Rivka Dance Company and its founding choreographer Ariel Grossman, and now also serves as that company’s Composer-In-Residence. De Kenessey is committed to helping women composers and musicians achieve parity in an unequal, biased world. She is the founding president of the International Alliance for Women in Music and serves on the board of New York Women Composers. http://www.stefaniadekenessey.com/about

 

Sabrina Clarke is a composer based in Raleigh, NC, where she is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Meredith College. Her music has been performed across the United States and abroad, at events including the Penn State New Music Festival; the International Music by Women Festival; the Common Tone Music Festival; the Geelvinck Fortepiano Festival in Amsterdam; the International Trombone Festival; the University of Louisville New Music Festival; the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series; and the Society of Composers Region III Festival. Sabrina earned her Ph.D. in Music Composition from the Boyer College of Music, Temple University.

Cara Haxo, Described as “movingly lyrical” (Avant Music News) and “quirky but attractive” (The Art Music Lounge), the music of Cara Haxo juxtaposes delicate, sparkly textures with the gritty and the grotesque. Haxo is the winner of the 2022 NWMF Emerging Women Composers Competition. She was also awarded the 2019 IAWM Libby Larsen Prize, the 2013 NFMC Young Composers Award, and the 2013 IAWM Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize. She has received commissions from the May Festival Youth Chorus, Hub New Music, Quince Ensemble, and Splinter Reeds. Haxo earned her Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Oregon, where she worked as a Graduate Teaching Fellow in Music Theory. She also holds degrees from Butler University and The College of Wooster. She is an Academic Dean and faculty member for The Walden School Young Musicians Program and the current Vice Chair and Treasurer of the Cleveland Composers Guild. Visit www.chaxomusic.com.

Beth Wiemann was raised in Burlington, VT, studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and received her PhD in composition from Princeton University. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally by the ensembles Continuum, Transient Canvas, Earplay, Guerilla Opera, and others. Her compositions have won awards from the Orvis Foundation, Copland House, the Colorado New Music Festival, New York Treble Singers, and regional arts councils. She teaches clarinet, composition and music theory at the University of Maine. Recordings of Wiemann’s music include Why Performers Wear Black, on Albany Records in 2004, and works on the New Focus Recordings, Navona, Ravello, Capstone, innova and Americus record labels. A recording of her chamber opera I Give You My Home for Guerilla Opera was released on Parma in 2023, and also made into a film released by Guerilla. Her compositions are available from American Composers Edition in New York. Wiemann has also served as the Director of the McGillicuddy Humanities Center at UMaine, the state chair for the International Clarinet Association, and as leadership in the Society of Composers, Inc.

Faye-Ellen Silverman is an American composer whose works draw inspiration from a variety of sources, including her Jewish heritage. Some of her works, such as A Free Pen, have evolved from her commitment to free speech. Her decades of working with the International Women’s Brass Conference have led to the creation of several works for brass instruments. While many of her compositions are for solo, chamber and vocal genres, she also enjoys writing for choir, orchestra, and other large mediums. Over 100 of her works are published by SeesawMusic/ Subito Music Corp. and are recorded on several labels. At age 13 she won the Parents League composition contest, judged by Leopold Stokowski, resulting in her Carnegie Hall debut. She is the first woman to receive a D.M.A. in music composition from Columbia University. She has taught at many institutions, including the Juilliard School (Extension), NYU, the Mannes School of Music, Goucher College, the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University. She has lectured in Europe (including at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and the Lithuanian Composers Union) and throughout the United States. Dr. Silverman is also the author of several articles, record reviews for The Baltimore Sun, and the 20th century section of the Schirmer History of Music. She currently serves as Board Secretary for New York Women Composers.

Melika M. Fitzhugh, A native of Stafford, Virginia, Melika M. Fitzhugh (A.B. Harvard-Radcliffe, M.M. Longy School of Music of Bard College) studied conducting and composition with Thomas G. Everett, Beverly Taylor, James Yannatos, Julian Pellicano, Roger Marsh, Jeff Stadelman, and, most recently, John Howell Morrison and Osnat Netzer. Mel’s compositions have been performed internationally by the PHACE Ensemble (Austria), Quarteto Larianna (Brazil), the Brouwer Trio (Spain), Sarah Jeffery (Nederland, Sweden), Sylvia Hinz (Germany), the Radcliffe Choral Society (US), Berit Strong (US), John Tyson (US), Miyuki Tsurutani (Japan/US), and Aldo Abreu (Venezuela/US). Mel was a 2021 Bang on a Can Fellow, the 2020 winner of the PatsyLu Prize for IAWM’s Search for New Music, the 2014 winner of the Longy orchestral composition competition, and has performed with the Radcliffe Choral Society, Coro Allegro, the Harvard Wind Ensemble, the Village Circle Band, and WACSAC.  The artist, who has composed music for film and stage, was a member of Just In Time Composers and Players and is currently a member of world/early music ensembles Quilisma Consort and Urban Myth, in addition to playing bass guitar with symphonic metal/progressive band Illusion’s End, the ambient rock band Rose Cabal and the Balkan folk dance band Balkan Fields.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Annual Concert 2026

Featuring

University at Buffalo Chamber Singers, University at Buffalo Students and Faculty and the Buffalo High School Girlchoir

October 27, 2026 19:30

Lippes Concert Hall, Slee Hall

University at Buffalo, Buffalo New York, USA