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Ukraine’s Sinchenko wins top honor in Garth Newel Music Center competition

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Bohdan Sinchenko
Bohdan Sinchenko. Photo courtesy Garth Newel Music Center.

The Hot Springs-based Garth Newel Music Center has named Ukraine music artist Bohdan Sinchenko the winner of its 2022 International Composition Competition.

Sinchenko will receive the Glorvina and Richard Lynn New Music Prize along with a travel stipend to attend Garth Newel Piano Quartet’s premiere (on July 30) of his new piano quartet, Exsistentia.

In addition, Sinchenko will be present for a residency from July 27-31 during Garth Newel Music Center’s 2022 Summer Festival.

“In Exsistentia, I expressed thoughts and feelings that were formed under the influence of events in my personal life over the past few years, events in my home country and the world,” Sinchenko said. “I really wanted to transfer to music the feeling that Martin Heidegger had called Dasein: when you feel the point where your own experience and the experience of many people are concentrated at the same time. When you want to recreate the hopes and pain that permeate you and many others. I felt that chamber music, with its potential to reveal intimate experiences, has the greatest relevance to this task.

“An ensemble of strings, which covers a considerable range and has remarkable technical capabilities, in combination with the piano gives a huge amount of sound colors and creates a variety of sound images. That is why the piano quartet became the best choice for this musical plan,” Sinchenko said.

The Garth Newel Piano Quartet received more than 100 submissions from all corners of the world to this year’s composition competition.

“Because the level of compositions was so high, we wanted to give some recognition to some of our favorites by naming finalists,” says Jeannette Fang, pianist of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet.

The Quartet offers their great appreciation to all of the talented composers who shared their creativity for the competition. The finalists for the 2022 Garth Newel International Composition Competition weer:

Daniel Hass (New York, United States): Piano Quartet – “Been There Once Before”

Ivan Božičević (Croatia): Beyond the Bend in the Road

Christopher Prosser (Los Angeles, United States): Hammer Striker

Founded in 1973, Garth Newel Music Center is one of the most active chamber music organizations in the country. Its resident ensemble – the Garth Newel Piano Quartet – performs more than 60 concerts annually both at the Center and on tour.

Through this competition, the Quartet seeks to broaden the piano quartet repertoire and to support the Center’s ongoing commitment to contemporary music.

More online at www.garthnewel.org.

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