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Academy of Arts and Letters |
 Laura Elise Schwendinger |
 Andrew Waggoner |
New York, NY (March 3, 2009) – Yaddo composers Laura Elise Schwendinger and Andrew Waggoner are among the 16 recipients of the 2009 American Academy of Arts and Letters awards in music, it was announced today. The awards will be presented in May.
Mr. Waggoner, currently composer-in-residence at the Setnor School of Music of Syracuse University, is one of four composers who will each receive a $7,500 Academy Award in Music, which honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer "who has arrived at his or her own voice." Each of the four honorees will receive an additional $7,500 toward the recording of one work. Ms. Schwendinger, an associate professor of composition at University of Wisconsin-Madison, will receive one of two $15,000 Goddard Lieberson Fellowships, given to mid-career composers of "exceptional gifts."
Ms. Schwendinger's music has been performed by Dawn Upshaw, the Arditti Quartet, the Theater Chamber Players, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, and Cygnus Ensemble, among others. Recent premieres include a piece she worked on at Yaddo, a commission from Miller Theater, Chiaroscuro Azzurro, premiered by Jennifer Koh and the International Contemporary Ensemble. She has been a Yaddo guest artist three times, most recently in 2008. Mr. Waggoner and his wife, the cellist Caroline Stinson, recently formed Open End, giving concerts over the past three seasons in New York City, Syracuse, Strasbourg, and Florence. He teaches regularly at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts Riverfront in New Orleans, where he was born. His music has been commissioned and performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Sequitur, and the Saint Louis, Denver, Syracuse and Winnipeg symphonies, among others. Mr. Waggoner was in residence at Yaddo in 1989.
Yaddo poet J. D. McClatchy recently was elected to a three-year term as president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.