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Kevin Beavers
Young American Composer-in-Residence, 2002-2005
The California Symphony's most recent participant, Kevin Beavers, has emerged as a rising star among the next generation of American composers. His second commissioned work for the Symphony, Songs from the Discovery, was the first piece composed by a Young American Composer-in-Residence for both orchestra and chorus. His final commissioned piece, Symphony No. 1, will be performed in October 2005.
Born in Colombia and raised in West Virginia, Mr. Beavers received his musical training at West Virginia University and went on to earn a Master's Degree and Doctorate from the University of Michigan. He joined the music faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 2001.
Mr. Beavers studied and worked for a year in Amsterdam on a grant from the Netherlands-America Foundation. His works have been performed by several major U.S. orchestras including those in St. Louis and Philadelphia. Mr. Beavers has received commissions from the St. Louis Symphony, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the University of Michigan Symphony Band, the Boston Conservatory (for Nanae Mimura), the Albany Symphony, and the Brooklyn friends of Chamber Music (for the Cassatt Quartet). He has recordings on the Equilibrium and Centaur labels and publications with Oxford University Press.
Mr. Beavers has received a number of grants and awards, including first prize in the Philadelphia Orchestra's Centennial Composition Competition, the Rudolph Nissim Prize from ASCAP, a commission grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lee Ettelson Prize, first prize in the Omaha Symphony's Composition Competition, four ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, two Regents Fellowships from the University of Michigan, and fellowships to attend the Tanglewood Music Festival and the MacDowell Colony. Mr. Beavers has taught composition and theory at the Interlochen Arts Camp.
To learn more, view Mr. Beavers' Website
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