Music Professor Awarded International Composition Award

Chris Arrell, assistant professor of music at Holy Cross, has received the 2011 Ossia International Composition Award for contemporary music from the Ossia New Music Ensemble, a student-run group at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music.

Ossia receives about 100 submissions each year from around the world. The competition, now in its fourth year, is decided by the Ossia production board, a team of student composers, theorists, and musicologists who choose the composition that best serves as an example of exceptional contemporary music.

Arrell, a composer and music theorist, entered his new chamber work, Convergence, scored for flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion. Convergence was commissioned by the renowned new music ensemble Boston Music Viva and premiered by the same group at the Tsai Performing Arts Center in November 2010.

“It is gratifying to receive external recognition for my work, especially from an ensemble affiliated with a highly respected music conservatory, and to have my music selected from an international pool of submissions,” Arrell said.

Each year, the winning composition is performed in the final concert of Ossia’s 2010-11 concert series. This year’s performance is March 29 at 8 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music. Arrell will be the featured guest composer.

Arrell earned his doctorate from Cornell University in 2002, where he worked with Pulitzer Prize recipient Steven Stucky. Previous recognition for Arrell’s music includes commissions from the Fromm Music Foundation of Harvard University, Music at the Anthology, and Spivey Hall, and awards from the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Competition, the League of Composers/International Society for Contemporary Music, the Society of Composers, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

He began his professorship at Holy Cross in 2008, and believes the College offers distinctive educational opportunities for musicians.

“Holy Cross has an excellent reputation among music professionals as a true liberal arts program that also offers rigorous musical training,” he says. “Our classes, ensembles, performance lessons, and concerts are designed to engage students from across the campus, and we are also able to provide a curriculum for our majors that prepares them for graduate studies should they choose to pursue music as a profession. From my perspective, this is the best of both worlds.”

By Rachel Salemme ’12