Miguel del Aguila

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lancaster Symphony Orchestra Recognizing Latin American Composer with its 48th Composer’s Award.

LANCASTER, PA -- The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra will honor Uruguayan-born Miguel del Aguila with its 48th Composer’s Award. This prestigious honor is awarded annually by the Symphony to a leading, living American composer. Del Aguila now resides in California.

The award will be presented to Miguel del Aguila at the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra’s “Celebrate the Planets” concert weekend November 14, 15 and 16, 2008, at the Fulton Opera House. The concerts will showcase the world premiere of his Choral Suite No. 2. Fortified by rhythmic vitality, this soulful chorus of joyous affirmation relates a romantic story which crosses five centuries in time.

Critics all over the world have recognized del Aguila’s talent and musical voice. He has written nearly 100 works for all media including concert, film, dance and theater. “Dependably brilliant,” proclaimed The New York Magazine. His captivating interplay of classical balance and romantic excess prompted the Los Angeles Times critics to hail him “one of the West Coast’s most promising and enterprising young composers ... sonically dazzling ... a whirlwind of energy and ideas.” The San Antonio Express News hailed him as “one of the most intriguing compositional voices to come along in recent years.” Zurich’s Zürcher Zeitung called him “disarmingly charming,” and Vienna’s Wiener Zeitung said “his music dances with incendiary rhythms ... [and] near to obsessive vitality.”

Del Aguila has received numerous awards. They include the Copland Foundation award in 2005, the Kennedy Center Friedheim award in 1995 and first prize in the United Students of the Americas competition in New York City in 1988.

“Miguel del Aguila brings a fresh, new voice to the symphonic music scene,” said Lancaster Symphony Orchestra music director Stephen Gunzenhauser. “By drawing upon his Latin American roots to bring a remarkable sense of color and rhythm to his compositions, he communicates with his audiences in a way that few contemporary composers do.”

Miguel del Aguila earned his Bachelor of Music degree in 1982 from the San Francisco Conservancy of Music. He continued his studies in composition and piano at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien and was awarded the Austrian equivalent of a doctorate from Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. After teaching music theory and piano in Uruguay and Austria, he is now composing in his California studio, as well as teaching at Ventura College in California and performing and guest conducting worldwide. He also founded and serves as music director of Voices, a composers’ group in Ventura County.

From 2001 to 2004, he was composer-in-residence at the Chautauqua Institution Summer Festival. From 2005-2006, he was composer-in-residence with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra.

Earlier honorees have included such prominent American musicians as Gian Carlo Menotti, Peter Schickele, Jennifer Higdon, Benjamin Lees, Joan Tower, Richard Danielpour and Aaron Jay Kernis.

A special Composer’s Award luncheon honoring Miguel del Aguila and thanking donors of $500 or more will be held the week of the performance for Lancaster Symphony Orchestra donors.

This is Stephen Gunzenhauser’s 28th year as the creative leader of the Symphony. He took the Symphony’s baton in 1980. The Grammy-nominated musician also led the Delaware Symphony for 23 years. In 2004, he also served as artistic advisor and principal conductor for the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra. He maintains a regular guest conducting schedule in Bogota and with symphony orchestras all over the world. The prolific conductor has made 66 recordings and sold over 2 million CDs.

Now in its 61st season, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra has evolved from a community orchestra into an organization of professional musicians serving 52,000

music enthusiasts with 28 yearly subscription concerts, a holiday concert, a New Year’s Eve gala celebration, a spring “Audience Requests” concert weekend and a free, outdoor community patriotic concert.

The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra is a 75-member, professional orchestra that was founded in 1947 by Frederick S. Klein and John H. Peifer, Jr. from Franklin & Marshall College.