Renowned among composers and conductors across the US, this intensely competitive residency provides an early-career composer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with Music Director, Donato Cabrera, and the California Symphony over three consecutive years to compose, workshop, rehearse, premiere, and record three major orchestra compositions, one each season. Part of the California Symphony since 1991, every three years a new composer is selected, and every alum has gone on to win top honors and accolades in the field.
Current Resident Composer
California Symphony will welcome Paul Novak as its next Composer-in-Residence, from fall 2026 through spring 2029. Novak’s “spellbinding” (Washington Post) music immerses listeners in shimmering and subtly crafted musical worlds full of color, motion, light, and magic. His recent projects engage with dreams and memory, queer identity, climate change and the natural world, and psychosomatic illness. Recent projects and accolades include:
- Awards from the Fromm Foundation, Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, BMI, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and more.
- Co-artistic director and flutist of Chicago-based ensemble Mycelium New Music.
- Novak current is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago.
- California Symphony Commissions:
- 2027 – To be announced
- 2028 – To be announced
- 2029 – To be announced
The California Symphony has one of the most outstanding composer-in-residence programs in the country. They have this orchestra-as-laboratory idea, and they let the composer work in ways that almost never happen anywhere else.”
—Mason Bates, Composer-in-Residence 2007-2010
Program Alumni
Since the residency was established in 1991 by founding music director, Barry Jekowsky, ten talented composers have completed the program:
| Saad Haddad | 2023-2026 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
Recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Barlow Endowment General Commission, S&R Foundation Washington Award Grand Prize, Jerome Fund for New Music grant from the American Composers Forum, Palmer Dixon Award from The Juilliard School, Aaron Copland Residency Award, and multiple awards from ASCAP, BMI, and the Vancouver Chamber Choir Residencies include the Millay Colony for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Bogliasco Foundation, Studios of Key West, Soundstreams Composer Workshop, and the Luzerne Music Center |
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2020-2023 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
Commission with the New York Philharmonic, 2020 Inaugural “Sandbox” Residency with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence with the Pacific Symphony, 2022-23 Winner of the Barlow Prize, William D. Revelli Prize, Frederick Fennell Prize, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, Barlow Endowment Commission, ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Award, Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Cortona Prize, New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, and Boston GuitarFest Composition Prize. | |
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2017-2020 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
2025 Winner–Guggenheim Fellowship 2020 Winner–Rome Prize Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2020 Career Advancement Award Past Winner American Modern Ensemble 8th Annual Composition Competition’s first prize Past winner American Conservatory at Fontainebleau’s prix du composition Past winner Albany Symphony Orchestra’s “Composer to Center Stage” competition Past winner Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Scholarship | |
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2014–2017 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
2015 Winner–Koussevitsky Commission Award Past Winner–Rome Prize (2013/2014) Past Winner–Barlow Prize (2008/2009) Past Winner–Naumburg Award (2010) Past Winner–Berlin Prize (2008/2009) Past Winner–Cleveland Arts Prize Awards–BMI, ASCAP, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of Composers, and the Naumburg Foundation | |
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2011–2014 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
BMI—Foundation/Boudleaux Bryant Fund commission (for Eighth Blackbird) 2000 BMI—Student Composer Awards 1995, 2000 BMG/Williams College—National Young Composers Competition, Grand Prize 1997 Howard Hanson Large Ensemble Prize (Eastman School of Music) 1997 Howard Hanson Orchestra Prize (Eastman School of Music) 1996 League of Composers/ISCM Composers’ Competition Winner 2009 Richmond Symphony—Composer-in-Residence 2009-2011 | |
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2007–2010 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition Chicago Symphony—Composer in Residence 2010–2015 Kennedy Center—Composer in Residence 2015–2016 Grammy Award Winner—Best Opera 2019 | |
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2002–2005 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
2001 First Prize– Philadelphia Orchestra Centennial Composition Competition 2000 First Prize–ASCAP Nissim Prize | |
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1999–2002 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
2001 winner—International Masterprize in Composition 2002–2005 Composer in Residence—Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition 2007 winner—Stoeger Prize from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center 2010 winner American Academy of Arts and Letter in Composition | |
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1996–1999 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
2012 winner—Pulitzer Prize for Music Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition | |
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1994–1996 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
2003 winner—International Masterprize in Composition Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition | |
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1991–1992 California Symphony Composer-in-Residence
Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition |