biography

Salvatore Martirano.


Biography
        Compositions         Discography         Instruments        Reviews        Colleagues & Students
L's.G.A.

News

Salvatore Martirano Award

The Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award is an international composers' competition held annually in memory of Mr. Martirano who was a faculty member at the University of Illinois from 1963 to 1995. Since its inception in 1996, the competition has attracted over 1,000 entries from over 30 countries. The first place prize consists of $1000.00 and a performance of the winning composition by the University of Illinois New Music Ensemble at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Zack Browning who is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Illinois directs the competition.

Salvatore Giovanni Martirano, internationally acclaimed American composer and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois was born on January 12th, 1927, in Yonkers, NY, a son of Alexander and Mary Mazzullo Martirano. He died at the age of 68 on Friday, November 17th, 1995.

Professor Martirano studied composition with Herbert Elwell at Oberlin College (1947-51), Bernard Rodgers at The Eastman School of Music (1952), and with Luigi Dallapiccola at the Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, Italy (1952-4). From 1956 to 1959 he was in Rome as a Fellow of the American Academy, and in 1960 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. At this time he had works commissioned by the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations. He was professor of composition at the University of Illinois from 1963 till his retirement in 1995. During the Illinois years he also accepted residencies at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Sydney in 1979, IRCAM in Paris in 1982, and The California Institute of the Arts in 1993.

His compositions have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra, and by radio orchestras and choral ensembles throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. His chamber and solo works have been performed world-wide.

Professor Martirano spent much of the 1970's developing the Sal Mar Construction, an electronic composing/performing system that Science Digest called "the world‚s first composing machine." He toured the world with his creation and with its successor, the yahaSalmaMac.

 

The University of Illinois School of Music presents

The 2006 Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award

 
Eligibility: Any composer, regardless of age or nationality.
Award:   Cash award of $1000 and a performance by the University of Illinois New Music Ensemble in the fall of 2006 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Additional awards of $500 and $250 plus performances may be given at the discretion of the judges.
Medium: Full scores of any style or aesthetic direction for one to ten performers (including vocalists) may be submitted. Works for tape, electronics and/or mixed media with or without instruments/voices are eligible.
Duration: 20 minutes maximum
Limit:   One entry per composer
Entry fee: A non-refundable entry fee of fifteen U.S. dollars ($15.00) in the form of a check must be included with each submission. All checks must be payable to the University of Illinois, and must either be an international money order or drawn on a U.S. bank.
Anonymous: Submission: The composer's name must not appear on the score itself or on any item. (tape, CD, etc.) submitted as supplement to the application. A sealed envelope must accompany the score and contain the composer's name, address, telephone number/e-mail (if applicable) and a brief biographical sketch. If a recording of the work is available, it should accompany the score and be identified only by the title of the composition.
Return of Materials:

Scores will not be returned unless a self-addressed, stamped envelope of the proper size is enclosed.

A panel of judges consisting of University of Illinois music composition faculty members will select the winning composition. The winning composer is expected to attend the award concert/reception and will be responsible for their transportation costs (the competition will provide a stipend for lodging). The winning composer will assume full responsibility for providing adequate performance materials upon request.

 

Previous Winners:
2005  Steven Rice, "Murmurs from Limbo"
2004  Robert Yamasato "Scherzo"
2003  Edward Top, "String Quartet"
2002 Yumiko Juvigny "Out of Dark Lair"
2001 Orlando Jacinto Garcia, "Paisaje del Sonido II"
2000 Sophia Serghi, "Sizzle"
1999 Craig T. Walsh, "0 to 33 in 1045.5" and Keith Moore, "A Vagrant on Every Floor"
1998 Karim Al-Zand, "String Quartet"
1997 Jason Eckardt, "Echoes' White Veil"

 

The deadline for the next competition is February 24, 2006 (postmark deadline)

Send submissions to:
2006 Martirano Composition Award
Attn: Zack Browning, Coordinator, Martirano Award
2136 Music Building
University of Illinois
1114 West Nevada
Urbana, IL 61801 USA

 

For More Information about Salvatore Martirano contact

Dorothy Martirano
phone (217) 344-3102
email dorothymartirano@gmail.com

Mail to SalMar Construction
c/o Dorothy Martirano
3411 S. Persimmon Cir
Urbana Il. 61802

This site was designed, and is hosted and maintained by Spineless Books.