American composer JEFFERSON FRIEDMAN is the winner of the 2004 Rome Prize Fellowship in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Rome. Sequenza 21 reports, "[Mr. Friedman] goes a lot further toward sustaining interest and tension than composers twice his age (and with Pulitzer Prizes)." Friedman's music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad, most notably at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, and the American Academy in Rome.

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and the ASCAP Foundation, and has been performed by the New York Philharmonic. Described as having "ambitious scale and complexity" by The Washington Post and "transcendent majesty" by The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), The Throne is a musical depiction of Washington visionary or "outsider" artist James Hampton's (1909-1964) incredible sculptural work of the same name. After its world premiere in 2004, The Washington Times praised the piece with, "Perhaps this country's long drought of listenable classical music is now coming to an end. This work, frankly, is a keeper."

08/06