George Tsontakis Wins 2005 Grawemeyer Award for His
   Violin Concerto No. 2

   PR Newswire - 29 November 2004

   LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, November 28, 2004 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/
   - American composer George Tsontakis has been selected to
   receive the prestigious 2005 University of Louisville Grawemeyer
   Award for Music Composition for his Violin Concerto No. 2.

   Described by one music critic as "a work of gentle beauty and
   intriguing orchestral sounds," Tsontakis's 20-minute concerto
   received its world premiere on April 19, 2003, by Steven
   Copes, violin, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra under the
   baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya.  The concerto was recorded in
   September as part of a KOCH disc of the composer's works.

   In this somewhat atypical concerto, the violin soloist acts
   as a sort of first among equals, rather than always as the
   star, with the accompanying chamber orchestra functioning in
   many places as a group of soloists itself.  The composer
   states that "the concept of 'orchestral' is diminished in
   deference to the concept of 'chamber.' "

   Violin Concerto No. 2 was one of more than 160 entries
   from around the world.  Tsontakis is the 19th winner of the
   Grawemeyer music prize.  Previous winners include Gyorgy
   Ligeti, Pierre Boulez, John Adams, Thomas Ades, Tan Dun, John
   Corigliano, Kaija Saariaho and, in 2004, Unsuk Chin.

   A faculty member of the Aspen Music School in Aspen, Colorado,
   since 1976, Tsontakis was the founding director of the Aspen
   Contemporary Ensemble from 1991 until 1998.  He studied
   composition with Roger Sessions at The Juilliard School, and
   he has directed the Riverside Orchestra and the Metropolitan
   Greek Chorale in New York.

   Violin Concerto No. 2 joins a long list of award-winning
   works by Tsontakis.  He twice has received Kennedy Center
   Friedheim Awards, in 1989 for String Quartet No. 4 and in
   1992 of his orchestral work Perpetual Angelus.  Pianist Stephen
   Hough's recording of Ghost Variations was nominated for a
   Grammy Award for best contemporary classical composition and
   was cited by Time magazine as the only classical recording
   among its 1998 Top Ten Recordings.  He is currently composing
   a piano concerto for Hough to be premiered with the Dallas
   Symphony in September 2005, when it will be recorded for
   Hyperion Records.

   Tsontakis received the prestigious award for lifetime achievement
   from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995 and was
   the Vilar Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in 2002.

   Charles Grawemeyer was an industrialist, entrepreneur and
   University of Louisville graduate who had a lifelong passion
   for music, education and religious studies.  Rather than
   rewarding personal achievements, he chose to recognize powerful
   ideas or creative works in the sciences, arts and humanities.

   The Grawemeyer Foundation at the University of Louisville
   annually awards $1 million - $200,000 each for works in music
   composition, education, ideas improving world order, religion
   and psychology.  The Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion
   is given by the university and the Louisville Presbyterian
   Theological Seminary.  The other Grawemeyer winners will be
   announced this week.

For more information, go to: http://www.grawemeyer.org/

Scott Morrison