Since 1921, the American Academy in Rome -- founded in 1894 and chartered by an act of the United States Congress in 1905 -- has offered an annual fellowship and two residencies to American composers to live and study in Rome for one year. By the time Bridge's four-CD compilation Americans in Rome is offered, 124 such positions have been offered and fulfilled, and a surprising number of these composers have become major players in American music, though only a couple -- Samuel Barber and Elliott Carter -- are routinely ...
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Since 1921, the American Academy in Rome -- founded in 1894 and chartered by an act of the United States Congress in 1905 -- has offered an annual fellowship and two residencies to American composers to live and study in Rome for one year. By the time Bridge's four-CD compilation Americans in Rome is offered, 124 such positions have been offered and fulfilled, and a surprising number of these composers have become major players in American music, though only a couple -- Samuel Barber and Elliott Carter -- are routinely recognized for their fellowships or residencies at AAR. Curator Donald Berman indicates that, apart from the once obligatory round of study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, the AAR fellowship/residency is the next best-kept secret in American art music, and to support his thesis Berman has pulled together this amazingly comprehensive set. Its four discs are subdivided into collections of solo song, music for strings and piano, music for piano solo, and music for winds and piano....
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