Berkeley Music Composer, Pianist to Receive Guggenheim Fellowship

A Berkeley woman is among this year's recipients of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships, which were announced Thursday.

Myra Melford, pianist and music composer, is receiving the award for music composition.

According to her biography on the Guggenheim Fellowship website, Melford is also a recipient of the 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music, is veteran of the international creative music community and an Associate Professor of contemporary improvised music at UC Berkeley.

She offered the following statement on the website:

"I draw great inspiration from other people's creative work and am intrigued by the ensuing cross-disciplinary dialogue. It’s a very personal conversation, which begins with a spark of recognition when I experience a given work of art, be it in any medium. Something in that building, the imagery or rhythm in that poem, that dancer's gestures or that painting, speaks to me or moves me, and I want to respond through music. The conversation is both internal—between the active/doer and the receptive/perceiver within me, and external—between the artwork that inspires and the musical response. It's a very rich and engaging process on many levels: emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual, and one I return to again and again in my work."

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded Fellowships to 175 scholars, artists, and scientists in its 89th annual competition for the U.S. and Canada.

Appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise, the successful candidates were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants.

For more information and Melford, visit her website www.myramelford.com.

For a complete list of the 2013 Fellows, please visit www.gf.org. You may also learn more about the Foundation and the activities of its Fellows on the Guggenheim Fellowship Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr pages.