Congrats, Dawn Upshaw

It was announced this week that Dawn Upshaw is a recip­i­ent of MacArthur Foun­da­tion “Genius Award”. Why? The MacArthur Foun­da­tion said that Ms. Upshaw

is break­ing down styl­is­tic bar­ri­ers and forg­ing a new model of a per­former who is directly involved in the cre­ation of con­tem­po­rary music.

Have a look at Ms. Upshaw’s reper­toire. Among her record­ings are “Dawn Upshaw Sings Ver­non Duke” and “Osvaldo Gilo­jov: Ayre”. She’s com­fort­able with Bach and Stravin­sky, and John Har­bi­son. Obvi­ously, as com­posers, this is the kind of per­former we want to get to know!

So, from a com­poser, con­grats to Dawn Upshaw, and thanks!