ELAINE RINALDI and ORCHESTRA MIAMI are the 2019 winners of The American Prize Ernst Bacon Award for the Performance of American Music, in the professional ensemble division, for their performance of Marvin David Levy‘s Inquisition & Masada. ORCHESTRA MIAMI and ELAINE RINALDI were selected from applications reviewed recently from all across the United States.
The American Prize is the nation’s most comprehensive series of non-profit competitions in the performing arts, unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, ensembles and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings. The American Prize was founded in 2009 and is awarded annually in many areas of the performing arts.
Link to official announcement: https://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2019/09/winners-bacon-award-american-music.html
The American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music recognizes and rewards the best performances of American music by ensembles and soloists worldwide, based on submitted recordings. There is no live competition. Applications are accepted from professional, college/university, community and high school age solo artists, chamber ensembles or conducted ensembles, competing in separate divisions, and from composers with excellent recordings of their works. Beginning in 2017, categories were expanded to encompass performances of American music in practically any instrumentation or genre, with very few repertoire restrictions.
Ernst Bacon (1898—1990) was one of that pioneering generation of composers who, along with Thomson, Copland, Harris, and others, found a voice for American music. Winner of a Pulitzer Scholarship for his Symphony in D minor, and no fewer than three Guggenheim Fellowships, Ernst Bacon set out to create compositions that expressed the vitality and affirmative spirit of our country. It is fitting, and with honor, that The American Prize in 2016 created an annual award in the memory of Ernst Bacon, recognizing the finest performances of American music worldwide.
The artist provided this biographical sketch:
Elaine Rinaldi, Founder and Artistic Director of Orchestra Miami, is a Miami native who has chosen to return home and reinvest in her community. Under her artistic supervision and direction, Orchestra Miami has performed high quality classical music concerts to literally thousands of people through its annual Free Outdoor Concerts and introduced over 25,000 school children to classical music through its collaboration with the MDCPS Cultural Passport Program, In-School Performances and Carnegie Hall Link Up concerts. Critics have called her work “absolutely exceptional” (El Nuevo Herald). Of her work, Lawrence Budmen of the Miami Herald wrote “Rinaldi clearly has a penchant for offering interesting thematic programming and promising soloists” and Daniel Fernandez of El Nuevo Herald wrote, “Rinaldi is a conductor who marries her professionalism with an exquisite sensitivity”.
Her recent engagements have included debuts at the Miami Music Festival for Die Zauberflöte and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Opera Orlando for Don Giovanni, Mezzano Romantico Summer Festival (Fiera di Primiero, Italy) for Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi and at the Tri-Cities Opera for Don Giovanni. She was the Principal Guest Conductor at the Dicapo Opera Theatre from 2001-2006 and has led several tours for the National Lyric Opera, twice appeared as a guest conductor with the Albany Symphony for the Shaker Mountain Performing Arts Festival, and conducted performances of La Traviata for Island Opera Theater in Key West. Rinaldi has held many positions as an Assistant and/or Cover Conductor in many of this country’s leading regional opera theaters. From 1997-2000, she held the positions of Resident Associate Conductor and Chorus Master at the Florida Grand Opera in Miami. Critics called her work with the chorus “exquisite”, and Tim Smith of the Ft, Lauderdale Sun Sentinel said “the chorus, under Elaine Rinaldi’s direction, gets better and better.” (La Boheme).
Her awards have included the Agnis Varis/Intercities Performing Arts grant, the League of American Orchestra’s mentorship with Joann Faletta, Finalist for the American Prize for Orchestral Conducting and Orchestra Performance, the Newton Swift Prize for Accompanying at the Mannes College of Music and the M. B. Byrd full tuition scholarship at the University of Miami Frost School of Music.
Additional information about the competitions on the website:www.theamericanprize.org
For runners-up in this category and for additional winners announced in 2018-19 in other competitions, please follow this link:
http://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/
Winners of The American Prize receive cash prizes, professional adjudication and regional, national and international recognition based on recorded performances. In addition to monetary rewards and written evaluations from judges, winners are profiled on The American Prize websites, where links will lead to video and audio excerpts of winning performances.
THE AMERICAN PRIZE—History & Judges
The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts grew from the belief that a great deal of excellent music being made in this country goes unrecognized and unheralded, not only in our major cities, but all across the country: in schools and churches, in colleges and universities, and by community and professional musicians.
With the performing arts in America marginalized like never before, The American Prize seeks to fill the gap that leaves excellent artists and ensembles struggling for visibility and viability. The American Prize recognizes and rewards the best America produces, without bias against small city versus large, or unknown artist versus well-known.
David Katz is the chief judge of The American Prize. Professional conductor, award-winning composer, playwright, actor and arts advocate, he is author of MUSE of FIRE, the acclaimed one-man play about the art of conducting. Joining Katz in selecting winners of The American Prize is a panel of judges as varied in background and experience as we hope the winners of The American Prize will be. Made up of distinguished musicians representing virtually every region of the country, the group includes professional vocalists, conductors, composers and pianists, tenured professors, and orchestra, band and choral musicians.
“Most artists may never win a Grammy award, or a Pulitzer, or a Tony, or perhaps ever even be nominated,” Katz said, “but that does not mean that they are not worthy of recognition and reward. Quality in the arts is not limited to the coasts, or to the familiar names, or only to graduates of a few schools. It is on view all over the United States, if you take the time to look for it. The American Prize exists to encourage and herald that excellence.”
By shining a light on nationally recognized achievement, winners of The American Prize receive world-class bragging rights to use in promotion right at home. “If The American Prize helps build careers, or contributes to local pride, or assists with increasing the audience for an artist or ensemble, builds the donor base, or stimulates opportunities or recruitment for winning artists and ensembles, then we have fulfilled our mission,” Katz said.
The American Prize is administered by Hat City Music Theater, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit performing arts organization based in Danbury, Connecticut.
ABOUT ORCHESTRA MIAMI
