UC Santa Barbara Public Affairs and Communications

NEWS RELEASE

WILLIAM KRAFT RECEIVES ASCAP AWARD

September 3, 1998

Composer William Kraft has received a 1998-99 award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Kraft, holder of the Dorothy and Sherrill C. Corwin Chair in Composition at UC Santa Barbara, has received similar awards from the group every year since 1964."A panel of esteemed composers decides these things," said Kraft, former director and founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group. "It's rewarding for me to be recognized by my peers."

During Kraft's long and distinguished career, he has received many awards, commissions, and nominations, including Guggenheim Fellowships, Ford Foundation commissions, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. Currently, he is composing a piece for English horn and percussion commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for the New Music Group.

Since coming to UCSB in 1991, Kraft has introduced Santa Barbarans to contemporary composers of Great Britain, Asia, and Mexico, as well as film scores through UCSB's New Music Festival, which he founded seven years ago.

Chosen by an independent panel of classical music professionals, recipients of ASCAP's cash awards are chosen "based upon the unique prestige value of each writer's catalog of original compositions as well as recent performances of those works in areas not surveyed by the society."

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