Symphony selects local composer for annual prize
The Emerging Black Composers Project, the annual commissioning and mentorship program run in partnership by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Symphony, has named Bay Area composer and singer Jens Ibsen as its second winner.
The prize brings a cash award of $15,000 and a chance to workshop a new work, which will then have its world premiere as part of the Symphony’s 2023-24 season conducted by Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
“It feels pretty incredible,” Ibsen said. “I’d been making work for 11 years without any recognition, but since 2020 I’ve started to see a lot more interest in my music.”
Ibsen, 26, was born in Accra, Ghana, to a Ghanaian mother and an American father. He grew up in Pacifica and Daly City, studied music at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts and sang with the Vienna Boys Choir, the ensemble’s first member to be born in Africa. He holds degrees in music from Pepperdine University in Malibu and from the Mannes School of Music in New York City.
As a composer, Ibsen boasts a varied musical portfolio that ranges from opera to heavy metal. He has been commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival and the Kennedy Center.
“I still remember the first time I listened to the songs he gave us,” said Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, the Symphony’s resident conductor of engagement and education and chair of the project. “One of them had me in tears and stuck with me the next couple of days. Another was in a completely different direction, in a heavy metal vein.
“And then, having been emotionally seized by his music, I looked at the scores and saw the craft, the structure and the logic that went into it, and I thought, ‘I need to hear more from this person.’ ”
In addition to his compositional work, Ibsen is a singer who has performed
with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and in recital with Bay Area pianistcomposer Preben Antonsen. In 2014, he organized a choral flash mob in the Embarcadero BART station.
“With the shift in the zeitgeist in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, people began reaching out to me more,” Ibsen said. “I had to do some soul-searching about that, because I had been working just as hard before.
“Where I ended up is that I just need to capitalize on this momentum while it’s here. And who knows how many times I’ve been passed over for being Black?”
The Emerging Black Composers Project was created in 2020 with an anonymous $250,000 donation to the Conservatory. Michael Morgan, the late music director of the Oakland Symphony, was an early backer of the project, along with Salonen and San Francisco Conservatory Music Director Edwin Outwater.
The first award was given in 2021 to New Jersey composer Trevor Weston, whose still-untitled orchestral work is scheduled for its world premiere Sept. 29-Oct. 2 alongside Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.
In addition to Weston, the committee also gave $8,000 commissions to composers Jonathan Bingham, who has degrees in composition from Howard and New York universities; Shawn Okpebholo, professor of music composition and theory at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Illinois; and Philadelphia native and jazz pianist Sumi Tonooka.
One of the factors in the prize decision, Bartholomew-Poyser said, was the search for young composers with potential.
“There were some composers in the mix who were really polished, like you could give them an opera commission now. But we were also looking for composers with the most promise for development — like, ‘Imagine what this person could do if they were given the resources,’ ” Bartholomew-Poyser said.
Ibsen, when asked about his plans for the commissioned work, said it was too early to know.
“I have an eclectic music spirit. I wear my influences on my sleeve, including Arab and Indian music and progressive metal. So those may come into play,” he said. “I’m elated at the prospect of working with an orchestra. Even after several hundred years, I think there are still some things we have yet to hear an orchestra do.”