Paul Sperry American Song Initiative Award
To honor Paul’s enduring impact on the creation of new art song, and the people who contribute to the process, we are proud to present the Paul Sperry American Song Initiative Award, an annual award for members of the Source community who have been ambassadors of American art song through commissioning, performance, and recording.
2023 Recipients:
Barbara Brown & John Michel
In 2020 and 2021, the Schubert Club of Saint Paul, with funding from friends and admirers of Louis Jenkins, commissioned 14 Minnesota composers to set for voice and piano 57 of the 62 poems in The Mad Moonlight, the last collection of his poems published during his lifetime, as a memorial tribute. The composers selected were Carol E. Barnett, Craig Carnahan, Jake Endres, Jocelyn Hagen and Tim Takach, Linda Tutas Haugen, Ryan Johnston, Linda Kachelmeier, Libby Larsen, J. David Moore, Daniel Nass, Jonathan Posthuma, David Evan Thomas, and Jeremy Walker. The resulting art songs were premiered at Schubert Club concerts in Saint Paul, Minnesota, starting in 2021, with the final premiere taking place at a Source Song Festival recital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on August 7, 2023. Wikipedia
2024 Recipients:
Sparks and Wiry Cries
Sparks & Wiry Cries is an organization founded in 2009 as a podcast and online magazine, contextualizing art song through the sharing of recordings, interviews, and articles by prominent artists and scholars. In 2015, co-founders soprano Martha Guth and pianist Erika Switzer expanded their vision by presenting an art song recital series based in New York City. In 2017, Sparks grew to include a commissioning program and the songSLAM competition (including Source’s annual winter SongSLAM!).
Today, their sparksLIVE events and Art Song Magazine actively engage in current conversations through insightful publishing, programming, and commissioning. Recent additions to the Sparks brand are the curation and publication of new works through E.C. Schirmer and NewMusicShelf, and the development of art song performance projects as represented by UIA Talent Agency.