Monacan grad wins competition (November 23, 2007)

The adage "write what you know" has paid off for Zachary Wadsworth. The Chesterfield County native recently was awarded first prize in the ASCAP/Lotte Lehmann Foundation Art Song Competition. Years of singing, he said, may have given him the upper hand.

"A vital aspect of writing for voice is being able to feel your breath, being able to internalize the idea that the instrument is the human body," Wadsworth said by phone from Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., where he is pursuing a doctorate in music.

"A disadvantage for composers who don't sing is that they miss out on the physical aspect of writing for voice, the idea that they're writing for a person." The Lotte Lehmann prize gives a composer a lot of exposure. In addition to $3,500 in cash, Wadsworth will receive a commission to write a song cycle for voice and piano, which will be performed in three major U.S. cities.

Wadsworth, 24, has received numerous commissions and several other composition awards. They include first place in the Long Leaf Opera One Act Opera competition, a Charles Ives scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two Morton Gould Young Composers Awards from the ASCAP Foundation and the Frances E. Osborne Kellogg Memorial Prize from the Yale School of Music. His choral work "O Saving Victim" was recorded on the Gothic music label, and another choral work, "Beati Quorum Remissae," will be published soon by Alliance Music Publications.

Wadsworth, a 2001 graduate of Monacan High School, received a bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, N.Y., and a master's from Yale University, in New Haven, Conn.

The Lotte Lehmann Foundation, named for the noted 20th-century soprano, is dedicated to the preservation of the form of art songs (also known as classical songs, Lieder or mélodie). Wadsworth's prize-winning composition, "deep inside the woods," is the result of a collaborative class project at Yale. A poem by Ivy Wang is set to the music scored for piano and soprano.

"Music and poetry can co-exist and heighten each other's expression," Wadsworth said. Wadsworth credits his years in the Richmond area as formative in his composing career. "I took piano lessons with [retired VCU music professor] Melissa Marrion," he said. "She taught me piano and theory and listened to my compositions and gave me feedback." Another local inspiration was the Richmond Symphony; his mother sings in the chorus. "When I was maybe 11 or so, I went to a Richmond Symphony Kicked Back Classics concert," he said. "They invited some kids to sit in the orchestra. I got one of the tickets, and I sat between the violins during Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. "It was the coolest thing."

— Lisa Crutchfield