Rene Orth (Composition '16) First Place Winner of 2023 Art Song Composition Award

Curtis congratulates Rene Orth (Composition ’16), who won first prize in the 2023 National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Art Song Composition Award for her song cycle, “Weave Me a Name.” Ms. Orth received $2,000 and the opportunity to have her work for soprano and piano performed at the 58th NATS National Conference, June 28 to July 2, 2024, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Additionally, the Cincinnati Song Initiative will program the cycle on a future concert.

The set of seven songs features poetry by Jeanne Minahan McGinn, Curtis’s senior associate dean of academics and Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Jr. Chair of Liberal Arts. The work will receive its world premiere on March 17, 2023, in Roxy Grove Hall at Baylor University with soprano Emily Albrink and conductor, coach, and collaborative pianist Kathleen Kelly. The cycle, which will be featured on Ms. Albrink’s upcoming debut album, Force of Nature (April 28, 2023, on Lexicon Classics), will also be presented on March 21 at Notre Dame University and March 24 at the University of Louisville.

“Winning this distinctive award is an honor, especially as this song cycle was written in honor of Nancy Albrink, a passionate collaborative pianist, pedagogue, and mother. It’s a beautiful tribute to her. I am also very pleased that the cycle has received this recognition, as I truly believe that more song cycles about the modern female experience— beyond Frauenliebe—need to enter the repertoire and be available for female singers.” —Rene Orth

To read the full announcement, click HERE.

To learn more about Rene Orth, visit her official website HERE.

To learn more about Jeanne Minahan McGinn, visit her website HERE.

Watch Rene Orth’s 2016 opera, Empty the House, a world premiere Curtis Opera Theatre production in partnership with Opera Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.