Hailstork Receives 2009-10 ASCAPLUS Award in Concert Music
Adolphus Hailstork, renowned composer, eminent scholar and professor of music at Old Dominion University, is the recipient of the 2009-10 ASCAPLUS Award in Concert Music.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) selected Hailstork based upon the unique prestige value of his catalog of original compositions, as well as recent performances in areas not surveyed by the society. The awards are intended to assist and encourage ASCAP composers in support of the growth and development of the nation's musical future.
Members of the Concert Music Division of the ASCAPLUS Awards panel who selected Hailstork for this grant were Judith Clurman, noted choral conductor and arranger, H. Robert Reynolds, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, and Steve Smith, music editor for Time Out NY and classical music critic for The New York Times.
"I was so pleased to hear that Adolphus is receiving this well-deserved recognition for his work. It is a wonderful honor for him and one that will also reflect very well on the Department of Music and on Old Dominion University as a whole," said Carol Simpson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at ODU.
Hailstork has written numerous works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band and orchestra. Two of his early compositions, "Out of the Depths" (1977) and "American Guernica" (1983), won national competitions. "Consort Piece" (1995), commissioned by the Norfolk Chamber Ensemble, was awarded first prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music. In 1992, Hailstork was proclaimed a Virginia Cultural Laureate.
"Rise for Freedom," an opera about the Underground Railroad, was premiered in October 2007 by the Cincinnati Opera Company. Two original compositions premiered in spring 2008: "Serenade" for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by Michigan State University, and "Set Me on a Rock," also for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by the Houston Choral Society.
In February 2010, a new choral work commissioned by the Miami of Ohio University for its 200th birthday will be premiered at a concert of all-Hailstork compositions. He is currently working on a civil rights piece for the Alabama Symphony, which will premiere in January 2011.