Scearce Wins Sackler Prize

Dr. J. Mark Scearce, director of the music department, has been named the recipient of the eighth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. The competition, organized by the University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts, supports composers and the performance of their new musical works. The international award includes public performances, recordings and $20,000. This year’s prize was for a concerto for cello and orchestra. The concerto will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, on WUNC-91.5 FM.

Scearce holds advanced degrees in music, philosophy and religion, including a doctorate in music composition from Indiana University. He previously served on the music faculties of Hawaii, North Texas and Southern Maine. With 50 active titles in his catalog, including musical settings of more than 120 texts, his works for orchestra, band, chorus, opera, chamber and ballet have been performed throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. His wide-ranging interests have led him to compose works inspired by contemporary issues and spiritual concerns, such as This Thread, a setting of Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s poem “The Dead of September 11,” that Orchestra Nashville premiered in 2004, and Gaea’s Lament, performed at a global climate change symposium in 2007. Scearce has seven works commercially available on compact disc on the Albany, Delos, Warner Bros, Capstone, Centaur and Equilibrium labels, and on a Sony 4-channel SACD (available online at http://www.frystreetquartet.com).