MELISSA DUNPHY’S WORK SELECTED AS THE WINNING PIECE FOR THE 2010 SIMON CARRINGTON CHAMBER SINGERS COMPOSITION COMPETITION
April 5, 2010 KANSAS CITY, MO – Melissa Dunphy’s new composition, What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach? has been selected as the winning work for the 2010 Simon Carrington Chamber Singers Composition Competition. The Philadelphia-based composer’s choral work sets excerpts of public testimony given before the Maine Senate by Phillip Spooner in a hearing to discuss the Marriage Equality Bill on April 22, 2009. Nearly 4,000 people attended the hearing, with marriage equality supporters out-numbering the opposition 4 to 1. On November 2, 2009, Maine voters repealed the bill which allowed same-sex couples the right to marry.
The double world premiere of What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach? is scheduled for the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers’ May 29 performances at Grace and Holy Trinity in Kansas City, MO and First Presbyterian Church in Lawrence, KS. The piece was selected from a pool of over 100 submissions, from over 70 composers, hailing from 10 different countries. In addition to having the piece premiered by the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, Dunphy will also receive a cash prize.
Dunphy states: “What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach? is based on an impassioned speech by a World War II veteran, given in testimony before the Maine Senate on the Marriage Equality Bill. I hope my setting does some justice to how deeply moving his words were to me, and how important they are for all Americans as we strive to uphold the ideals of our nation – freedom and equality.”
In choosing the work from a narrowed-down, committee-selected pool of nine finalists, music director and conductor Simon Carrington gave his reasoning behind selecting Dunphy’s work as the winner. “There were plenty of excellent pieces in the sweet-sounding modern idiom which SCCS would make very beautiful, but the strongest (and most individual) piece was Melissa Dunphy’s What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach? – a bold and highly effective setting of a thought-provoking text.”
2010 Simon Carrington Composition Competition Finalists:
WINNER Melissa Dunphy: What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Richard McIntyre: Bibamus, Moriendum Est
Phillipsburg, NJ, USA
Kentaro Sato: Gloria from Missa Pro Pace
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
Robert Pherigo: If you can't eat
Olathe, KS, USA
John White: Maria Laudate
Westminster, CO, USA
Ivo Antognini: Nunc Dimittis
Aranno, Switzerland
Dominick DiOrio: O Virtus Sapientiae
Houston, TX, USA
Keith Clark: Ubi Caritas
Portland, OR, USA
Michael Gilbertson: Weep You No More
New York City, NY, USA
Melissa Dunphy (b. 1980) has composed in a wide range of styles
and
mediums, particularly in the realm of theatre. Her nationally acclaimed
large-scale choral work The Gonzales Cantata (www.gonzalescantata.com)
was performed at the 2009 Philadelphia Fringe Festival and received
rave press and reviews from The Wall Street Journal, The
Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who
featured the Cantata twice on The Rachel Maddow Show and
called it “the coolest thing you will ever see on this show.” Melissa
received an honorable mention in the 2009 ASCAP Lotte Lehmann Foundation
Art Song Competition for her song for baritone Black Thunder,
which was premiered in 2008 at the Kimmel Center by Network for New
Music. Her electro acoustic piece Insects was featured at the
2009 FEASt Festival in Florida, the 2009 Beauty, Horror and Silence
Festival in Florida, and the 2010 SEAMUS National Conference in St.
Cloud, Minnesota. She is the composer in residence of the Immaculata
Symphony Orchestra, who premiered her Jack and the Beanstalk suite for
orchestra and youth choir at their annual youth concert in February
2010.
Melissa was awarded an Associate Diploma in viola performance from the
Australian Music Examinations Board at age 16. She has a Bachelor of
Music(summa cum laude, Pi Kappa Lambda) from West Chester University,
where she was a recipient of the Harry Wilkinson Music Theory
Scholarship, the Charles S. and Margherita Gangemi Memorial Scholarship
for excellence in music theory and composition, and the Janice Weir
Etshied '50 Scholarship for academic excellence. She is currently
undertaking doctoral studies in composition at the University of
Pennsylvania on a Benjamin Franklin Fellowship. Her instructors have
included Robert Maggio, Larry Nelson, Van Stiefel, Jim Primosch, and
JayReise.
Melissa is also an accomplished actor, recognized in Philadelphia as
“unquestionably the city's leading Shakespeare ingénue.” [Philadelphia
Inquirer]
PHILLIP SPOONER’S TESTIMONY (excerpted) and TEXT FOR WHAT DO YOU THINK I FOUGHT FOR AT OMAHA BEACH?
Good morning, committee. My name is Phillip Spooner and I live at 5 Graham Street in Biddeford. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican and an active VFW chaplain … I was born on a potato farm north of Caribou and Perham, where I was raised to believe that all men are created equal and I've never forgotten that.
I served in the U.S. Army, 1942-1945 … I worked with every outfit over there, including Patton's Third Army. I saw action in all five major battles in Europe… I was in the liberation of Paris.
(I have seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice.)
I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting. A woman … asked me, “Do you believe in equality for gay and lesbian people?"I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, "What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?”
For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.
My wife and I did not raise four sons with the idea that our gay child would be left out. We raised them all to be hard-working, proud, and loyal Americans and they all did good.
A YouTube clip of Spooner’s testimony can be found here:
