Young American Composer-in-Residence
Renowned among composers and conductors across the US, this intensely competitive residency provides an American composer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collaborate with Maestro Cabrera and the California Symphony over three consecutive years to create, 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 graduate has gone on to win top honors and accolades in the field.
In a record year for applications to this program, Katherine Balch was selected as the 2017-2020 Young American Composer-in-Residence.
Applications for the 2020-2023 Young American Composer-in-Residence are now closed.
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, eight talented Americans have completed the program:
| Dan Visconti | 2014–2017 2015 Winner–Koussevitsky Commission Award Past Winner–Rome Prize Past Winner–Berlin Prize Past Winner–Bearns Prize from Columbia University Past Winner–Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing Arts Past Winner–Barlow Prize Past Winner–Cleveland Arts Prize Awards–BMI, ASCAP, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of Composers, and the Naumburg Foundation |
| D. J. Sparr | 2011–2014 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 |
| Mason Bates | 2007–2010 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 |
| Kevin Beavers | 2002–2005 2001 First Prize– Philadelphia Orchestra Centennial Composition Competition 2000 First Prize–ASCAP Nissim Prize |
| Pierre Jalbert | 1999–2002 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 |
| Kevin Puts | 1996–1999 2012 winner—Pulitzer Prize for Music Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition |
| Christopher Theofanidis | 1994–1996 2003 winner—International Masterprize in Composition Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition |
| Kamran Ince | 1991–1992 Past winner—Rome Prize in Composition |