Michael Colgrass to Become National Honorary at Leadership Institute 2013

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is pleased to announce that internationally acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass will be in attendance at Leadership Institute 2013 to become our newest National Honorary member. At the event, he will also be a featured speaker.

Colgrass won 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Deja Vu, which was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic. In addition, he received an Emmy Award in 1982 for a PBS documentary, Soundings: The Music of Michael Colgrass. He has been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, A Rockefeller Grant, First Prize in the Barlow and Sudler International Wind Ensemble Competitions, and the 1988 Jules Leger Prize for Chamber Music. Among many other popular works, his Winds of Nagual has become a standard in the repertoire and won the National Band Association�s William D. Ravelli Memorial Composition Contest and the Sudler International Composition Competition. He has also created a method of teaching children and teachers how to write music, which was adopted by the Nova Scotia education system for inclusion in the junior high curriculum.

These accomplishments highlight a career that has spanned decades and has included extensive performances with many of the world’s greatest musicians and ensembles.

Colgrass is in demand as a speaker and presenter, both on his music teaching methods and as an inspiring instructor on creativity and performance. His presentation at Leadership 2013, The Key to Creativity: Think Like a Kid will focus on the creative process, and helping all those in attendance unlock their creative potential.

In recognition of his indelible imprint on music as a composer, performer and educator, we’re proud to initiate Michael Colgrass as our newest National Honorary member at Leadership Institute.

To learn more about Colgrass, his life, music, and writings visit his website at www.michaelcolgrass.com. And to sign up for Leadership Institute to get a chance to hear from and meet this legend in American music, head to www.sinfonia.org/institute.