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Connecticut Composer Tyshawn Sorey Scores Another Prestigious Fellowship

John Rogers
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Composer, conductor, pianist, percussionist, and trombome player Tyshawn Sorey

Connecticut musician Tyshawn Sorey has followed up last year's MacArthur Fellowship with another prominent award.

Sorey is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and an assistant professor of music at Wesleyan University. Besides his work as composer-in-residence with the Brooklyn-based International Contemporary Ensemble, he also leads the Tyshawn Sorey Trio, a group that seems to defy musical genres.

In a 2017 interview with the MacArthur Foundation, who awarded him a “genius” grant last year, Sorey said he's not interested in musical labels and discourages listeners from classifying his music.

“Terms like jazz, R&B, avant-garde and things like that -- I don't consider them really important when it comes to my music” said Sorey. “I'm interested in the totality of all different musics throughout the world, and seeing what I can do with them.”

Now, Sorey has just been chosen for a 2018 United States Artists fellowship, along with 45 other artists, including jazz greats Terence Blanchard and Wayne Shorter.

Sorey and the other fellows will receive a $50,000 unrestricted award, for "their contributions to the field, and allowing them to decide how to best support their lives" according to the United States Artists’s website.

Ray Hardman is Connecticut Public’s Arts and Culture Reporter. He is the host of CPTV’s Emmy-nominated original series Where Art Thou? Listeners to Connecticut Public Radio may know Ray as the local voice of Morning Edition, and later of All Things Considered.

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