NEC Alumni Win Nonfiction, Composition Guggenheims
David Fulmer '00 Prep, '04 B.M. and Glenn Kurtz '05 B.M. Tufts/NEC are among 178 American and Canadian scholars, artists, and scientists honored.
Stipends Support Fellows’ Work on Creative Projects
NEC alumni David Fulmer '00 Prep, '04 B.M. and Glenn Kurtz '05 B.M. Tufts/NEC are among 178 American and Canadian scholars, artists, and scientists awarded 2016 Guggenheim Fellowships. Fulmer's award is in the "Music Composition" category, Kurtz's in "General Nonfiction." Their selection was announced earlier this month by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Chosen from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants, the award winners were selected on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.
Edward Hirsch, president of the Foundation, called the recipients “the best of the best. Each year since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has bet everything on the individual, and we’re thrilled to continue to do so with this wonderfully talented and diverse group. It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.” Since its establishment, the Foundation has granted more than $334 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are scores of Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and recipients of other important, internationally recognized honors. Find a list of NEC's past Guggenheim Fellows.
The 2010 success at Lincoln Center of the violin concerto by David Fulmer '00 Prep, '04 B.M. earned international attention and resulted in immediate engagement to perform the work with major orchestras and at festivals in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and Australia. Fulmer made his European debut performing and recording his concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Matthias Pintscher in 2011. That same year, Fulmer made his debut at Tanglewood appearing with the work. A surge of new commissions and recent performances include the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Berlin Philharmonic, Slovenian Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Salzburg Foundation, BMI Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, Washington Performing Arts, and the Fromm Music Foundation.
As conductor, Fulmer has led and recorded with numerous ensembles and orchestras all over the world. This summer he will be appearing at Tanglewood.
Fulmer was recently the recipient of both the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Carlos Surinach Commissioning Award from BMI. He is the first American recipient of the Grand Prize of the International Edvard Grieg Competition for Composers. As a violin student at NEC, was a member of the Preparatory School's Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and subsequently won NEC's George Whitefield Chadwick Medal given to a distinguished graduating College senior.
Glenn Kurtz '05 B.M. Tufts/NEC is the author of Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2014), named a “Best Book of 2014” by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio. A Dutch translation appeared in 2015. A documentary film based on Three Minutes in Poland is in production.
The 1938 home movie on which the book is based can be viewed at the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive.
Kurtz's first book, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music, was featured on NPR's “Weekend Edition” with Scott Simon. An Italian edition appeared in 2010, a Chinese edition has just been published, and a Korean edition is forthcoming.
Kurtz also hosts “Conversations on Practice,” a discussion series about the writing process and the writer’s life. Guests have included Martin Amis, Patti Smith, Jennifer Egan, Adam Gopnik, Francine Prose, Tom McCarthy, Dani Shapiro, Daniel Mendelsohn, among others.