The Library of Congress Awards the Koussevitzky Grant to the California Symphony and Composer in Residence Dan Visconti

Dan Visconti, the California Symphony's Young American Composer in Residence through 2017, has been awarded the prestigious Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundationcommission by the Library of Congress. Visconti was recognized and commissioned for his concerto for guitar and orchestra, Living Language. Living Language will be given its world premiere by the California Symphony, which co-commissioned the work, and Music Director Donato Cabrera with Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux, on May 6 at the Lincoln Theater at the Napa Valley Performing Arts Center in Yountville and May 8 at its home in the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.

Visconti and the orchestra are among the five awardees this year. Lei Liang and Art of Élan for the Formosa Quartet, Colin Matthews and the London Sinfonietta, Bent Sørensen and Quattro Mani, and Nina C. Young and The Nouveau Classical Project were also recognized. The commissions are granted jointly by the foundation and the performing organizations that will present performances of the newly composed works.

"It is an incredible honor for Dan Visconti and the California Symphony to receive the highly coveted Koussevitzky Foundation Commission through the Library of Congress," said Cabrera. "It is not only a recognition of Mr. Visconti's talent and unique and engaging compositional voice, but it also recognizes and celebrates California Symphony's continued and ardent support for newly composed works. I look forward to premiering the work this commission will help create, Mr. Visconti's Living Language, a concerto for guitar and orchestra, with Jason Vieaux."

Dan Visconti, 33, studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music. Visconti serves as composer and Director of Artistic Programming at Chicago's Fifth House Ensemble. He received the Rome Prize and Berlin Prize, among others. Active as a writer, Visconti contributes to the Huffington Post and since 2008 has written a weekly column for NewMusicBox, the web magazine of the American Music Center. He was awarded a 2014 TED Fellowship and delivered a TED talk in Vancouver.

California Symphony's Young American Composer-In-Residence program is renowned among composers and conductors across the U.S. This intensely competitive residency provides an American composer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with Music Director Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony over three consecutive years to create, rehearse, premiere, and record three major orchestra compositions, one each season. Since the residency was established in 1991, seven talented Americans have completed the program: D. J. Sparr (2011-2014); Mason Bates (2007-2010), one of today's most acclaimed and commissioned composers, who went on to receive composer residencies at Chicago Symphony and the Kennedy Center; Kevin Beavers (2002-2005); Pierre Jalbert (1999-2002), also composer in residence at Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and a winner of the Rome Prize in Composition; Kevin Puts (1996-1999), winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the Rome Prize; Christopher Theofanidis (1994-1996); a Rome Prize winner; and Kamran Ince (1991-1992), Rome Prize winner.

Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949, was a champion of contemporary music. Throughout his distinguished career, he played a vital role in the creation of new works by commissioning such composers as Béla Bartók, Leonard Bernstein and Igor Stravinsky. He established the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress to continue his lifelong commitment to composers and new music. The Koussevitzky commissioning program is designed primarily for established composers who have demonstrated considerable merit through their works and for orchestras and chamber groups that have a record of excellence in the performance of contemporary music. Applications for commissions are accepted annually. For more information, visit http://www.koussevitzky.org.

ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY

The California Symphony is distinguished for its concert programs that combine classics alongside American repertoire and lesser-known works, its pioneering Young American Composer in Residence program, its nationally recognized education programs, and for bringing music to people in new and unconventional settings.The orchestra is entering its third season with Music Director Donato Cabrera, and has just announced the signing of new, three-year contracts with Cabrera and the California Symphony musicians. The orchestra is comprised of musicians who have performed with the orchestras of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others. California Symphony has launched the careers of some of today's most-performed composers and soloists, including violinist Sarah Chang, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and composers such as Mason Bates, Christopher Theofanidis, and Kevin Puts. The orchestra is expanding its regional base in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, performing concerts in three new venues in 2015-16. The orchestra will perform at its home at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, the Napa Valley Performing Arts Center's Lincoln Theater in Yountville, and did recent performances at the Concord Pavilion in Concord and with Postmodern Jukebox at the Kaiser Center Roof Garden in Oakland. For more information, please visitwww.californiasymphony.org.

California Symphony Music Director Donato Cabrera has been the Music Director and Conductor for the California Symphony since 2013. He also is Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and the Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2009, and has a thriving international conducting career. In 2014, Cabrera was appointed Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra. For more information, please visit www.donatocabrera.com.

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