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Naval Academy Band
Scores5.

CALL FOR SCORES

 

 

CONGRATULATIONS to the Call for Scores 2023 AWARDEES

 

The Naval Academy Band Call for Scores Composition Competition was founded in 2021 to expand the repertoire of new works for our unique instrumentation. During 2023, the USNA Band solicited and accepted jazz scores for review. We received submissions from a diverse pool of composers. The following works will be performed as the centerpiece of the Superintendent's Combo performance at the Gordon Center in Bel Air, MD on March 13, 2024.

WINNER: Perry's Ferry by Spencer MerkSpencer Merk

Spencer Merk is a trombonist, composer, and arranger located in Baltimore, Maryland. He has had the pleasure of performing professionally with world-class musicians such as Jeff Hamilton, Maria Schneider, Umphrey’s McGee, Jeff Coffin, Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Kim Deal (The Pixies, The Breeders), Mike Gordon (Phish), and many others. His compositions and arrangements have been performed by Umphrey’s McGee (featuring Jeff Coffin), Warren Wolf, Mike Gordon, Walfredo Reyes Jr., the Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, the University of Dayton Jazz Band, The Peabody Jazz Ensemble, and the Peabody Pan-American Jazz Ensemble. He has released two albums on Golden Mean Records: "Last Place in a Bear Race" (2022) and "At Least" (The Merk Brothers, 2023). In 2022, Spencer won the International Trombone Association’s J.J. Johnson Competition for Jazz trombonists under the age of 25. He is currently a first-year Graduate Jazz Fellow at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

The Superintendent's Combo will record Perry's Ferry for release later in 2024.

 

HONORABLE MENTION: New Year, Same Me by Andrew Janak

Dr. Andrew Janak is the Instructor of Jazz Saxophone at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and active saxophonist/composer/arranger/educator throughout the Mountain West. He has worked/written for acclaimed jazz musicians such as Mitch Towne, Marcus Lewis, Bob Lark’s Alumni Band Band, Drew Zaremba Fellowship Jazz Orchestra and the Tom Matta Big Band. Andrew has several creative projects specializing in original music such as the Andrew Janak Organ Trio and the Andrew Janak Octet. He recently released his sophomore album of original music/arrangements entitled No Second Guessing.Andrew joined the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado in Fall 2021 where he teaches applied jazz saxophone, jazz improvisation, jazz arranging and jazz theory.

 

Call for Scores 2022 AWARDEES


The Naval Academy Band Call for Scores Composition Competition was founded in 2021 to expand the repertoire of new works for our unique instrumentation. During 2022, the USNA Band solicited and accepted woodwind and mixed chamber wind scores for review. We received over 70 submissions from a diverse and international pool of composers. The following three works will be performed as the centerpiece of
 an upcoming concert in the Baltimore area in Fall 2023.

WINNER: Sinfonietta for Mixed Chamber Wind Ensemble by Jacob EvartsJacob Evarts

Jacob Evarts is a composer, hornist, and current sophomore at the University of Georgia. He has been composing since the age of 10.  He entered and won the Georgia Music Educators Composition Competition for small ensembles for 5 straight years, from 2016 to 2020.  His first winning composition for large ensemble was awarded by the Warren County Summer School of Music in 2019. His winning piece “Wildcat Fanfare” was written to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the opening of both Locust Grove Middle and Locust Grove High Schools, his middle and high school alma maters. In January 2020, he was awarded first runner-up in the Lowell Mason House music advocacy competition. He was chosen as one of the 2022 National Young Composers Challenge winners with his work for full orchestra, Wonder of the World. He has also had his works performed by the US Naval Academy Band and the US Air Force Band of the West. When not composing, Evarts plays horn in various UGA large ensembles, and mellophone in the UGA Redcoat Marching Band. 

The Naval Academy Band Chamber Winds will record Sinfonetta for release later in 2023.

 

HONORABLE MENTION: Sail Away! by Daniel Kim

Daniel Kim is a composer who strives to write in a variety of genres - from classical to contemporary and film to game music. His works draw influence from various composers and eras like Korngold, Prokofiev, Hisaishi, and Larkin. He has written for small and large ensembles such as string quartets, chamber orchestras, wind ensembles, and electronic. He is currently a member of the Asian Memory Project, writing and arranging music for Asian-inspired events.

 

HONORABLE MENTION: Introduction and Fuga Interrumpida for 2 Clarinets and Bass Clarinet by Dr. Peter Temko

Dr. Peter Temko is a Greensboro, North Carolina, native and current resident of Atlanta, Georgia. He began his undergraduate music theory studies at Florida State University with Roy Johnson, Harold Schiffman, John Boda, and Lew Pankaskie, and studied clarinet with Harry Schmidt. Temko earned his Bachelor and Master of Music Theory from the Manhattan School of Music, and his mentors were Ludmilla Ulehla and Nick Flagello. He taught at Trenton Junior High School #1 after graduating, before returning to Florida State University to complete doctoral studies. Temko earned his Ph.D. in Music Theory at Florida State University where he continued his compositional studies with John Boda and worked to set up the first Moog synthesizer at FSU. He was the graduate assistant in clarinet at FSU between 1968-1970 for Harry Schmidt. 

His higher education teaching career started at Florida A&M University, where Temko was the Chair of Music Theory from 1970-1974. He spent most of his career at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 1974 to 1999, teaching music theory, electronic music, composition, clarinet, and saxophone. Throughout his time at UTC, he served in many leadership roles, including Chair of Graduate Programs and Music Theory, Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Acting Head of the Music Department. In the summers at UTC, he was active in the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts. Publishing accomplishments include Temko’s Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano (Shawnee Press, 1977) and A Practical Approach to Form in Music, co-authored with Peter Spencer (Prentice Hall, 1988). As a performer, Temko gave many solo and chamber music recitals while at UTC and played clarinet and bass clarinet in the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra from 1974-1995. Temko also had several commissions and performances of his music regionally and nationally during this period. Some of these include the Five Stages of Grief for Soprano, Violin, Cello, and Piano, for which he was awarded the 1979 Tennessee Music Teacher Association Composer of Year; two children’s operas, The Elephant’s Child (1984) and The Butterfly That Stamped (1984), based on Rudyard Kipling stories with librettos by Sue Spencer; Three Movements for Clarinet Alone (1994) for clarinetist Jerry Hall; WindPsalms Quintet for Winds (1996) in honor of the 10th decade of Cadek Conservatory of Music; and Still Voices (1998) for Cadek Department of Music’s chamber series.  

 Temko remained an active composer and clarinetist after retirement in 1999, beginning with a premiere of his work Weavings (2001) for the bi-annual UTC Contemporary Composers Symposium. He co-founded the Florida-based clarinet ensemble, Licorice Schtick (Pete Temko, John Creveling, Dave Irwin, and Larry Kleinfeld), and wrote several pieces performed by that group, including Licorice Schtick Variations (2003), Introduction and Fuga Interrumpida (2004) and Introductory Suite (2007). More recently, Temko wrote Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections (2014) for Nikolasa Tejero and Wanda Yang Temko, based on the poetry of author and cousin, Leza Lowitz. This project was funded by the Southern Composers League and was revised in 2022 for I voci delle leonesse (Meghan Merciers and Gretchen Windt). Writings by female authors are a recurrent inspiration for Temko’s compositions, including Linda Pastan’s poetry, The Five Stages of Grief. This served as the basis for Temko’s earlier work for piano trio and soprano and his more recent choral work, performed by Early Bird, a professional chamber choir in Atlanta, in 2021. 

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