Reinaldo MoyaThe American Composers Forum is pleased to administer the McKnight Artist Fellowships for Composers. The intent of this program is to enrich and strengthen the state of Minnesota by acknowledging the accomplishments of composers and providing for their artistic growth.
The 2015 McKnight Composer Fellows are: Reinaldo Moya, Abbie Betinis, Peter O'Gorman, and David King.
Founded on the belief that Minnesota thrives when its artists thrive, The McKnight Foundation’s arts program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Support for individual working Minnesota artists has been a cornerstone of the program since it began in 1981. The McKnight Artist Fellowships Program provides annual, unrestricted cash awards to outstanding mid-career Minnesota artists in 10 different creative disciplines.
Other ACA composer recipients of this award in the past include Scott L. Miller, Jan Gilbert, and Phillip Rhodes.
Reinaldo Moya is a Venezuelan-American composer whose rhythmically and emotionally-charged works depict the multitude of voices and influences in the whole of the American continent today. He's the recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer and the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House, which led to a residency at Aaron Copland's historic home in NY state in 2012. His String Quartet was hailed as "Admirable...reaching a climax of Shostakovichian angst" by the New York Times.
Mr. Moya grew up in Venezuela, where he was a founding member of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. As a member of the violin section of the orchestra, Mr. Moya toured throughout Europe, as well as North and South America under such esteemed conductors as Giuseppe Sinopoli, Claudio Abbado and Gustavo Dudamel.
Moya is a graduate of The Juilliard School where he received his masters and doctorate degrees, under the tutelage of Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. As a participant of the John Duffy Composers Institute in 2014 (part of the Virginia Arts Festival in Norfolk, VA) he worked closely with Libby Larsen, John Corigliano and William Bolcom. Moya has been commissioned by the Minnesota Opera to write a new opera for their Project Opera. An adaptation of Will Weaver's best-selling book Memory Boy, the opera will have a libretto by Mark Campbell and is scheduled be premiered in the spring of 2016.
Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo were premiered in June 2013 with funding in part by the American Composers Alliance, at Symphony Space in New York City. Other performances from Generalissimo followed in November 2013 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and at St. Olaf College in March, 2014.
