Award named for Pulitzer Prize winning composer and SFSU Professor Emeritus Wayne Peterson

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2002 -- American composer Amy Williams was named the fifth annual winner of the Wayne Peterson Prize in Music Composition this month, earning $4,000 and the West Coast premiere of her prize-winning work, Sextet, for mixed chamber ensemble. The award was presented by the School of Music and Dance/College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University and the Empyrean Ensemble, in residence at University of California at Davis. The Empyrean Ensemble premieres the work in its 2002-2003 season. Ross Bauer, founder of the ensemble, and Kurt Rohde, Artistic Director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, judged this yearıs competition.

Currently on the composition faculty of Northwestern University, Ms. Williams holds a Ph.D. in composition and a Masters degree in piano performance from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her compositions have been performed widely throughout the United States and Europe.

The Wayne Peterson Prize in Music Composition is named for Professor Emeritus Wayne Peterson, a member of the College of Creative Arts/SFSU music faculty for more than 40 years and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1992. The competition is open to U.S. citizens and legal residents age 35 and under.

The Empyrean Ensemble presents compelling performances of new American Music as well as 20th century classics by masters such as Ravel, Debussy, Copland and Shostakovich. Founded in 1988 by composer Ross Bauer, the group features Terri Baune, violin, Tod Brody, flute, Peter Josheff, clarinet, Thalia Moore, cello, and Ellen Ruth Rose, viola. The ensemble is in residence at the University of California, Davis.

The College of Creative Arts has the only academic program primarily devoted to the creative arts in Northern California. An internationally acclaimed faculty directs 3,185 undergraduate and graduate students in six areas: Art, Cinema, Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts, Music and Dance, Theater Arts, and Design and Industry. The College of Creative Arts is part of San Francisco State University, one of the 23 member universities comprising the California State University, the largest system of higher education in the nation. SFSU is a highly diverse, comprehensive, public and urban university. For more information about the College of Creative Arts, please visit www.sfsu.edu/~allarts/. For an application, please call Admissions at (415) 338-1113.