The Composers Now Visionary Award recognizes members of the arts community who have made a profound, positive, and lasting impact on our society through their creative practice and advocacy. Composers Now presents the Visionary Awards each year at the Composers Now Festival Opening Event.
Award presented by Henry Threadgill
acceptance speech (excerpt) and live performance
Gavel Patter
by Libby Larsen
David Friend, Vicky Chow, piano
2024 Composers Now Festival Opening Event 01.31.2024 @ National Sawdust - Brooklyn, NY
acceptance speech (excerpt) and live performance
Three Baldwin Poems
by Dwight Andrews
Louise Toppin, soprano; Kyle Walker, piano
2024 Composers Now Festival Opening Event
01.31.2024 @ National Sawdust - Brooklyn, NY
"Mamie's Lament" from Emmet Till: The Opera
Lucia Bradford, mezzo-soprano
"Pap's Song" from
Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story
Philip Lima, baritone
Andrea Chinedu Nwoke, soprano
Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra
Ng Tian Hui, conductor
Darryl V. Jones, director
(dress rehearsal, April 2014)
Mayor Bill de Blasio's Proclamation: 00:00
Wednesday, February 1, 2017, as Composers Now Festival Day
Presented by Kathleen Hughes, Assistant Commissioner of DCLA 2017
Visionary Award to Muhal Richard Abrams: 06:08
2017 Visionary Award to Thomas Buckner: 10:08
2017 Visionary Award to Pauline Oliveros (posthumously): 14:42