Press Releases

May 22, 2001
Southampton Professor Awarded Guggenheim

Contact:
Darren Johnson
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

Composer Daniel W. Koontz, a Southampton resident and music professor at Southampton College, has been awarded a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship. Dr. Koontz joins 182 others worldwide chosen from 2,728 applicants in a wide variety of fields.

The award provides fellows with funds that they may use in any manner they deem necessary for their work, allowing as much creative freedom as possible. Koontz, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, intends to use his award to complete a piece for chamber ensemble.

At Southampton College, Dr. Koontz teaches classes in music theory, history and piano. Koontz directs the chorus and instrumental ensemble, and also served as music director for The Southampton Players productions of "Guys and Dolls" and "Anything Goes."

Koontz has received support for compositional work from the American Music Center and the MacDowell Colony, an artists colony in New Hampshire. His instrumental compositions have won several awards from such organizations as ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and SCI (Society of Composers), and he has received numerous commissions, including appointments from the Stony Brook contemporary chamber players, a new music ensemble directed by Gilbert Kalish and Raymond Des Roches, and from Ensemble 21, a Columbia University based contemporary chamber ensemble, for their 2000-2001 concert series. Koontz has received fellowships to attend numerous festivals, including the Voix Nouvelles festival in France and the Wellesley Composers Conference. Koontz' music has been performed in America, Canada, China, Brazil, and throughout Europe by such performers as saxophonist Taimur Sullivan, The New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Ictus and the NIEUW Ensemble in the Netherlands.