We are pleased to announce that Kenny Werner is a recipient of the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Music Composition.
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those “who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”
The performing arts are excluded, although composers, film directors, and choreographers are eligible. The fellowships are not open to students, only to “advanced professionals in mid-career” such as published authors. The fellows may spend the money as they see fit, as the purpose is to give fellows “blocks of time in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible”, but they should also be “substantially free of their regular duties”.
The Foundation receives between 3,500 and 4,000 applications each year. Approximately 220 Fellowships are awarded each year.
Kenny received this prestigious award by submitting the music for his new CD, to be released on the Half-Note record label on August 17th, 2010, entitled, No Beginning, No End.
The music is a 5-movement composition, featuring Joe Lovano (saxophone), Judi Silvano (voice), Kenny Werner (piano), and a 35-piece wind ensemble. No Beginning, No End is the inspired work that Kenny wrote commemorating the entire experience of the loss of his daughter, Katheryn Werner.
While this new CD will feature No Beginning No End as the centerpiece, joining the experience is a choir piece that Kenny wrote entitled Visitation, recorded with a wonderfully talented students from New York University; a string quartet, entitled Cry Out; and ending with an improvised piece with orchestral instruments, Coda.
For documentary videos and the story behind this transcendental work,
please visit this website:
http://www.NoBeginningNoEnd.org
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah!!!! Kenny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations Kenny!
Hi Kenny and Andrew,
Congratulations on your award Kenny! I am really looking forward to hearing No Beginning No End and the rest of the CD, so please let us know where we can purchase it, when it becomes available. The spirit never dies, I truly believe this. What a wonderful tribute to your daughter.
Warm Regards,
Mary
ahhhh..Kenny. I felt overwhelmed with both joy and sadness listening to this preview. I keep remembering that wonderful day in the forest just before she left us when you played music and we painted inspired by your sounds and I saw how lovely your beautiful daughter was (is). I am really looking forward to this Album. Inspiring!
Kenny,
Thank you for this inspiring and deeply touching tribute to your daughter. My father died in a car accident when I was 7, and this reminded me I miss him still today so many years later.
Richest Blessings.
Thank you for sending me this wonderful message tonight.
I listened fully and felt the beauty and faithful path he followed here.
No moment was unfulfilled in the magnitude of his feeling and expression of the powerful experience he had regarding the life of his daughter. He dove in deep to uncover the moment to moment truth of this ode to his daughter, and it’s for sure she is proud – where she is which is many places, and sometimes with him still, she is smiling and energized in her journeys.
Sincerely,
Amanda
Thanks for this info!
I was playing a concert in New Jersey for an African Aids Organization the day of that accident and just before the concert started someone told me in the parking lot and I’ll never forget the feeling of my heart sinking into my stomach knowing the grief that Kenny and his wife must be feeling.
Glad to hear that her memory will live forever with this music.
Sincerely,
Rick DellaRatta – Founder – Jazz for Peace – 212-947-1104 http://www.jazzforpeace.org
Click here to watch our NBC TV Interview and find out more about Jazz for Peace in 3 minutes or less! http://www.jazzforpeace.org/threem.html
P.S. Oops – Just to clarify – I was in New Rochelle (not New Jersey) performing for Esthers Aide (a charity helping abandoned children and children with Aids in Rwanda) when I heard the news.
Rick
This is really lovely… very moving, Kenny.
Love, Maria
Mr. Werner,
Congratulations on this wonderful achievement. I can’t wait to listen to the full CD!
Best wishes always,
Brian Gorrell
Your recent concert in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Lensic was pure magic. The Quintet was remarkable. We could not sleep. Thank you for one of the finest musical evenings of my entire life.