LACO Artistic Advisor Derrick Skye Receives Prestigious Princess Grace Award

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Artistic Advisor Derrick Skye has been honored with the prestigious 2021 Princess Grace Award Honoraria in theater.

The composer, who merges music, text, movement, and film, is noted for work that is cross cultural, cross genre, and multi-disciplinary. The Princess Grace Awards support and elevate extraordinary early career artists in theater, dance and film, and nurture the recipients throughout their careers. Skye is one of 18 Princess Grace Award winners and 12 Honoraria recipients selected this year from over 200 nominated candidates who now join the community of over 800 distinguished recipients honored since the inception of the awards.

Skye was nominated for the award by James Darrah, LACO 2020-21 Creative Director of Digital Content, who worked closely with Skye on an episode for LACO's critically acclaimed digital Close Quarters series that spotlighted the broad scope of Skye's artistry, including the world premieres of Skye's LACO-commissioned Mother of Bravery for septet and narrator, featuring him as the narrator, and Mind The Rhythm, performed by Assistant Concertmaster Tereza Stanislav on amplified solo violin with pre-recorded electro-acoustic percussion and electronics by Skye, who also curated and co-directed the episode. Darrah, himself, received the 2009 Princess Grace Award in Theater.

"I'm very humbled to receive this award," says Skye. "More than anything, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to be an artist across several disciplines and be acknowledged for that approach in such a significant way. I'm also incredibly thankful to Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, James Darrah, LACO Creative Advisor Ellen Reid, and LACO Music Director Jaime Martín for being such enthusiastic advocates for multi-disciplinary creativity and collaboration."

"Derrick is a remarkably talented artist who is brimming with fresh approaches to music and performance," says LACO Music Director Jaime Martín. "He has made a meaningful impact on LACO as well as the broader cultural community through his inventive multi-disciplinary work. We salute him for this incredible and well deserved honor and know that he will continue to enrich and innovate the arts."

"I nominated Derrick emphatically for this award due to our incredible partnership in the LACO Close Quarters series," says Darrah. "I was - and continue to be - completely inspired by his 'entire' art. As a result of the boundary-pushing Close Quarters digital platform LACO created during the global pandemic, Derrick was able to showcase and unleash a unique, captivating musical voice and a gracious, progressive spirit as a theater maker and storyteller. Derrick is constantly seeking to illuminate, whether through his curation of artistic teams or the intersection of how a dancer might influence the notes or words on the page of the score. He is essentially re-writing what it means to be a 'composer' in a chamber music environment. He's engaging with people outside of the norms to push boundaries, but it's at such a personal, core level that it emerges as something entirely new, refreshing, human, and unapologetically, rapturously fierce. Derrick is a generous musical 'revolutionary,' and this Princess Grace Award is a wonderful acknowledgment of his singular talent as a key artist who's bringing new music, orchestral works and opera into theatrical and cinematic spaces in powerful, uncharted new ways."

The Princess Grace Foundation-USA is dedicated to upholding the legacy of Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco, (née Grace Kelly) and elevating extraordinary emerging artists in theater, dance and film through career-advancing grants. Her commitment to advance the arts in the United States is sustained by the Princess Grace Awards which supports and elevates extraordinary early career artists in theater, dance and film through game-changing grants; and nurtures and supports Princess Grace Award winners throughout their careers.

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