Los Angeles, CA (March 2, 2017) - The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced sixteen recipients of this year's awards in music, which include Director of the LA Phil's Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program Andrew Norman, Composer Fellowship Program alumnus Saad Haddad, and two LA Phil National Composers Intensive participants Katherine Balch and William Healy.

Andrew Norman is one of four composers who will each receive a $10,000 Arts and Letters Award in Music, which honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. Each will receive an additional $10,000 toward the recording of one work.

Saad Haddad, along with one other composer, will receive a Charles Ives Fellowship of $15,000. Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives's music, which has enabled the Academy to give the Ives awards in composition since 1970.

Katherine Balch and William Healy, along with four other composers, will both receive Charles Ives Scholarships of $7,500, given to composition students of great promise.

The sixteen winners, whose awards total $195,000, were selected by a committee of Academy members: Yehudi Wyner (chairman), Samuel Adler, Martin Boykan, Sebastian Currier, Stephen Jaffe, Aaron Jay Kernis, Tobias Picker, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. The awards will be presented at the Academy's annual Ceremonial in May. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy.

For complete artist biographies, please visit: http://www.laphil.com 

The Academy
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 to "foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts."  Each year, the Academy honors over 50 composers, artists, architects, and writers with cash awards ranging from $5000 to $100,000.  Other activities of the Academy are exhibitions of art, architecture, and manuscripts. and readings of new musicals.  It is located in three landmark buildings on Audubon Terrace in New York City.

The LA Phil's Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program is an innovative two-year program that gives passionate young composers the tools and the freedom to shape the future of music. Founded in 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky, CFP provides private and group composition lessons, seminars presented by LA Phil musicians, and encounters with professionals in the field, propelling Fellows to excellence. Graduates of CFP have gone on to study composition at the University of Southern California, Harvard, Yale, the New England Conservatory, University of California-Los Angeles, and many others. Students experience the creative process from start to finish with the help of accomplished composers. A unique program among American orchestras, CFP also provides these young composers with the remarkable opportunity to hear their works performed in concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Students are led through the creative process from start to finish, inspired by their mentors: Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program Director Andrew Norman and CFP Teaching Artist Sarah Gibson.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, under the vibrant leadership of Music Director & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, presents an inspiring array of music from all genres - orchestral, chamber and Baroque music, organ and celebrity recitals, new music, jazz, world music and pop - at two of L.A.'s iconic venues, Walt Disney Concert Hall (www.laphil.com) and the Hollywood Bowl (www.HollywoodBowl.com). The LA Phil's season extends from September through June at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and throughout the summer at the Hollywood Bowl. With the preeminent Los Angeles Philharmonic at the foundation of its offerings, the LA Phil aims to enrich and transform lives through music, with a robust mix of artistic, education and community programs.

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