Commissioned Composer
Conrad De Jong, composer and professor emeritus, initiated the Commissioned Composer event in 1967 at UWRF's Spring Fine Arts Festival. De Jong's intention from the beginning was to ensure that contemporary trends in American music would become part of the repertoire of UW-River Falls music students.
60th Commissioned Composer: Eve Belgarian
This year's Commissioned Composer, Eve Belgarian, is the 60th composer in our long-running program. The Commissioned Composer concert will be held Thursday, March 12, and Belgarian will be in residency March 10-12.
About Eve Beglarian
Eve Beglarian Bio
According to the Los Angeles Times, composer and performer Eve Beglarian is a “humane, idealistic rebel and a musical sensualist.” A 2023 winner of the Arts and Letters Award for “a spectacular body of work that innovates and takes enormous risks,” she is also a 2017 winner of the Alpert Award in the Arts for her “prolific, engaging and surprising body of work,” and has been awarded the 2015 Robert Rauschenberg Prize from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts for her “innovation, risk-taking, and experimentation.” Her piece None More Than You was featured on Roomful of Teeth’s album Rough Magic, which won the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
Her current projects include a solo piano piece about Emily Dickinson responding to Ives’ Concord Sonata for the pianist Donald Berman, a piece about Alaskan light for the 2025 Wild Shore Festival, a queer exploration of 14th century composer Guillaume de Machaut’s multimedia love story, Le Voir Dit, and a piece for 24 basses in a grove of trees, composed for Robert Black and friends, a recording of which is forthcoming on Canteloupe Records. Since 2001, she has been creating A Book of Days, “a grand and gradually manifesting work in progress…an eclectic and wide-open series of enticements.” (Los Angeles Times)
In 2009, “Ms. Beglarian kayaked and bicycled the length of the Mississippi River [and] has translated her findings into music of sophisticated rusticity. [Her] new Americana song cycle captures those swift currents as vividly as Mark Twain did. The works waft gracefully on her handsome folk croon and varied folk instrumentation as mysterious as their inspiration.” (New York Times)
Beglarian’s chamber, choral, and orchestral music has been commissioned and widely performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the American Composers Orchestra, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the California EAR Unit, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, loadbang, Newspeak, the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble and individual performers including Maya Beiser, Lara Downes, Lucy Dhegrae, and Thomas Feng.
Highlights of Beglarian’s work in music theater includes music for Mabou Mines’ Obie-winning Dollhouse, Animal Magnetism, Ecco Porco, Choephorai, and Shalom Shanghai, all directed by Lee Breuer; Forgiveness, a collaboration with Chen Shi-Zheng and Noh master Akira Matsui; and the China National Beijing Opera Theater’s production of The Bacchae, also directed by Chen Shi-Zheng.
She has collaborated with choreographers including Ann Carlson, Robert LaFosse, Victoria Marks, Susan Marshall, David Neumann, Take Ueyama, and Megan Williams, and with visual and video artists including Cory Arcangel, Anne Bray, Vittoria Chierici, Barbara Hammer, Kevork Mourad, Shirin Neshat, Matt Petty, Bradley Wester, and Judson Wright.
Performance projects include Brim, Songs from a Book of Days, The Story of B, Open Secrets, Hildegurls’ Ordo Virtutum, twisted tutu, and typOpera.
Eve received her undergraduate degree at Princeton in 1980, where she studied with Milton Babbitt and J.K. Randall, and a Masters at Columbia in 1983. She also studied privately for several years with the musical polymath Jacques-Louis Monod. She has chosen to remain unaffiliated with the academy since then, but is delighted to mentor younger composers intermittently and informally.
Recordings of Eve’s music are available on ECM, Koch, New World, Canteloupe, Innova, Naxos, Kill Rock Stars, CDBaby, and Bandcamp.
Annual Commissioned Composer Project... Since 1967!
The Commissioned Composer Project, begun in 1967 by Professor Emeritus Conrad De Jong, is the longest standing program of its kind in the United States, putting a national spotlight on the UW-River Falls Music Department. Each year, student members of the Commissioned Composer Project select and commission a composer to write a piece of music for the student body, and arranges for that composer to come to the campus in the spring to interact with the students and take part in the premiere performance of that work.
Conrad De Jong is a highly acclaimed and accomplished composer of international renown. He has 30 published commissions to his credit and, since 1970, has received annual awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 1980, he was a featured composer at New Music America. His music has been performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Town Hall in New York City, and on the Today Show. Internationally, his works have been performed in Canada, South America, Europe, Australia and Japan. One of his numerous commissions, Variations on the Spanish LaFolia, has been recorded by the Dorian Wind Quintet on its Summit Records CD, American Premiers.
As a teacher, he was especially proud of his students' work in composition and their performances with the UWRFs New Music Ensemble. He also takes great personal gratification from the establishment and continuation of the UWRF Commissioned Composer Program.
Commissioned Composer Student Organization
UW-River Falls hosts the longest running collegiate Commissioned Composer Project in the US. Students participate in all aspects of the Commissioned Composer Project. Guided by adviser Patti Cudd, the composers visit campus and share a new work created for the UWRF music program. Students of this organization meet on a regular basis to plan, prepare and host the week-long residency in spring semester. Join this group of creative thinkers who make a difference in the world of music!
Past Commissioned Composers
- 1967 Vincent Persichetti - CELEBRATION
- 1968 Donald Erb - THREE PIECES
- 1969 Chou Wen-Chung - YUN
- 1970 Ross Lee Finney - THE REMORSELESS RUSH OF TIME
- 1971 Barney Childs - WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM’D
- 1972 Mel Powell - SETTING
- 1973 Stephen Chambers - SKETCHY BLUE BOP AND TONE PRAYERS
- 1974 William Albright - INTRODUCTION, PASSACAGLIA, AND RONDO CAPRICCIOSO
- 1975 Henry Brant - A PLAN OF THE AIR
- 1976 Leslie Bassett - WIND MUSIC
- 1977 John Cage - QUARTET
- 1978 Richard Felciano - THE SEASONS
- 1979 Barbara Kolb - CHROMATIC FANTASY
- 1980 Edwin London - PSALM OF THESE DAYS V
- 1981 Stephan Chatman - SCREAMS AND WHIMPERS
- 1982 Sydney Hodkinson - ALTE LIEBESLIEDER (Book III)
- 1983 Frederic Rzewski - SATYRICA
- 1984 Fisher Tull - QUODLIBET
- 1985 Irwin Bazelon - FOURSCORE
- 1986 Harold Budd - ODD ANTHEMS AND STILL ROOMS
- 1987 Morton Feldman - FOR STEFAN WOLPE
- 1988 Libby Larson - BAC
- 1989 John Zorn - RUAN LINQYU
- 1990 Joel Chadabe - JAM
- 1991 Mary Ellen Childs - IN EACH OTHER’S PRESENCE
- 1992 Lois V Vierk - PLAIN OF SIX GLACIERS
- 1993 James Fritschel - COME LET US SOUND WITH MELODY
- 1994 David Revill - ORENDA
- 1995 Jennifer Higdon - WILD MAN DANCES
- 1996 Conrad De Jong - EARTH SONGS
- 1997 Joseph Turrin - SOUNDINGS
- 1998 Fred Sturm - RIVERSCAPE
- 1999 Judith Lang Zaimont - PARALLEL PLAY
- 2000 Jared Spears - LEGACY
- 2001 Pauline Oliveros - SOUND PATTERNS AND TROPES
- 2002 Anthony Braxton - COMPOSITION NO. 307
- 2003 Christian Wolff - PEACE MARCH 9
- 2004 Michael Torke - FOUR WHEEL DRIVE
- 2005 Stephen Paulus - JUBILATE!
- 2006 John Luther Adams - ... and bells remembered ...
- 2007 Lars Jansson - RIVER FALLS SUITE
- 2008 Marc Mellits - PRIME
- 2009 Julia Wolfe - GUARD MY TONGUE
- 2010 Michael Colgrass ZULULAND
- 2011 Conrad De Jong - EARTHSONGS II
- 2012 Cort Lippe - MUSIC FOR OCTET AND COMPUTER
- 2013 Fang Man - CONCERTO FOR PIANO, PERCUSSION AND WIND INSTRUMENTS
- 2014 Guy Klucevsek - LITTLE BIG TOP (SUITE)
- 2015 Mark Applebaum - CLICKTRACK
- 2016 Amy Williams Mise-en-Scène - FOR SMALL WIND ENSEMBLE
- 2017 Jocelyn Hagen - CROWN OF WEEDS
- 2018 Young Jo Lee - ENCOUNTER – VI
- 2019 Alan Ferber - SECOND WIND
- 2020 Nirmala Rajasekar - ELEMENTAL SPIRIT: RESPECT & RESPONSIBILITY
- 2021 Evan WIlliams - SOUND AN ALARM
- 2022 Alex Shapiro - FREE
- 2023 Davor Bobic - AMERICAN CROATIAN TRIPTYCH
- 2024 - Jin Hi Kim - VOCALIZATION IN MOTION
- 2025 - Brent Michael Davids
