AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

2021: Theodore Mother Guerin Research Travel Grant (University of Notre Dame) for “Writing Friendships: Letter Correspondence Between Jazz Pianist Mary Lou Williams and Women Religious, 1961–1981”

2021 SATB modern justice anthem, “We Walk in Love,” is selected as the sole composition to celebrate Music in Our Schools Month by the 15,000 teacher member Pennsylvania State Education Association, Mideastern Region, for a 32-voice virtual choir comprised of students from ten high schools.

2020  Second place winner, National Sacred Music Choral Composition Contest, Dallas, TX, for “Make My Joy Complete”

2018: New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Individual Artist Grant for the Nossa Senhora Suite

2018: Composition Fellow at the Choral Art Initiative PREMIERE|Project Festival
(Premiere of SATB piece, “Oração da Viajante (The Traveler’s Prayer)”

 

2017: Sacatar Institute Fellowship, Bahia, Brazil (2018 eight week residency)

2017: Winner, ChoralArt New England Carol Contest
(SATB a cappella piece, “A Christmas Carol”)

2017: Winner of the Colorado Chorale commissioning contest (2018 premiere of “After a Storm”)

2017: Winner of the Annual Hymn Search of The Hymn Society in the US and Canada
(“We Belong to God”)

2016: New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) fiscal sponsorship for new Afro-Brazilian project, the Nossa Senhora Suite

2016: Best Pianist, Hothouse New York Fans Decision Jazz Award

2016: Winner, Illinois-ACDA Composition Contest (for SSAA piece, “Where Shadow Chases Light”)

2015: Berger-Carter Research Fund grant recipient, Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, NJ Research on jazz in Catholicism in the late 1960s/early 1970s

2011: Finalist for a Fulbright research/teaching award in São Paulo, Brazil

2002: Winner of the Great American Jazz Piano Competition, Jacksonville, FL

 

2017: Justice Choir call for scores: SATB song, “We Walk in Love,” is selected for the Justice  Choir Songbook, Vol. 1

2017: St. Peter Episcopal Church, Ashtabula, OH (SA commission, “Who Do You Say?”)

2016: MusicSpoke: Selected as a MusicSpoke affiliated composer

2016: Lutheran Arts’ Martin Luther Hymn Prize recipient (new hymn and anthem commission)

 

2015: Composer-Librettist Studio at New Dramatists, New York
One of five composers selected for the annual music-theatre workshop

2015: Winner, The Astoria Choir Call for Scores (for SSAATTB piece, “Glistening Lily”)

 

2013: Semifinalist, The American Prize in Choral Composition (for “Glistening Lily”)

Composing- Selected Commissions

2013-15: Park Avenue Christian Church, New York
Over fifteen original works for Sanctuary Choir, Gospel Choir, and congregation

2010: United Methodist Women’s Assembly, St. Louis, MO (theme song for 6000 attendees)

2004: Concentus Women’s Choir, Rochester, NY (SSAA commission, ‘I learned that her name was Proverb’)