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The MacDowell Colony will present its Edward MacDowell Medal this year to legendary composer Steve Reich. He will be the 46th recipient of the MacDowell Medal. The Medal is awarded annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the arts. Mr. Reich joins an impressive list of past recipients, including Aaron Copland, Edward Hopper, I.M. Pei, and Joan Didion.

The award will be presented to Mr. Reich in a public ceremony during the annual Medal Day celebration on Sunday, August 14, 2005, beginning at 12:15 p.m. on The MacDowell Colony grounds in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Robert MacNeil, chairman of The MacDowell Colony, will present the Medal, along with Carter Wiseman, president of the board, and Cheryl Young, executive director.

Called the “most original musical thinker of our time” by The New Yorker, Steve Reich has blazed musical trails among numerous traditions, including Western classical, American vernacular, and jazz. “He never plays it safe,” says composer Francis Thorne, who served as the Medal Selection Committee chairman and is currently president of the American Composers Orchestra. “His music carries a personality that takes its hat off to nobody.” Composer David Lang, another member of the committee, agrees: “Steve Reich is one of the towering giants of American music. His sound, which combines rigorous structures with propulsive rhythms and seductive instrumental color, is instantly recognizable, and has been influential to composers in America and all over the world. The intellectual discipline and intense musicality behind the exploration of these questions give his work a feeling of inexhaustible and perpetual innovation.” Other members of this year’s committee included Chen Yi, distinguished professor in music composition at the University of Missouri’s Conservatory of Music; and composer Robert Beaser.

Born in New York, Mr. Reich graduated with honors in philosophy from Cornell University in 1957. For the next two years, he studied composition with Hall Overton, and from 1958 to 1961 continued his education at the Juilliard School of Music. Mr. Reich received his master’s degree in music from Mills College in 1963, and in 1966 established his own ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, which has sold out shows in such venues as Carnegie Hall. Mr. Reich won GRAMMY Awards in 1990 and 1999; in 1997, Nonesuch Records released a 10-CD retrospective of his compositions to wide critical acclaim. Orchestras all over the world, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, have performed his music.

“I am honored to be chosen to receive the Edward MacDowell Medal,” says Mr. Reich, who is the latest in a long tradition of composers honored by the Colony, including Elliott Carter, Samuel Barber, William Schuman, and Lou Harrison.

After the ceremony awarding the Medal to Mr. Reich, Colony guests will enjoy picnic lunches, and current MacDowell artists-in-residence will open their studios to the public from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. There is no charge to attend the ceremony or the open studios.

Since 1907, The MacDowell Colony has provided more than 5,500 artists of all disciplines with the time and private space for creative work; of these, nearly 1,000 have been composers, including such notables as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Meredith Monk, Ned Rorem, and Virgil Thomson. Situated on 450 acres of woodland in Peterborough, New Hampshire, the Colony welcomes more than 250 composers, writers, architects, filmmakers, and visual and interdisciplinary artists from the United States and abroad each year. The sole criterion for acceptance is talent; a panel in each discipline selects Fellows. In 1997, The MacDowell Colony was awarded the National Medal of Arts for “nurturing and inspiring many of this century’s finest artists.” For more information, please log on to www.macdowellcolony.org.

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