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Performing Arts Library Special Collections in Performing Arts ABA Research Center 
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Ostwald Award Archives
Winner 1984: James Curnow, Symphonic Variants for Euphonium and Band
Winner 1980: James Curnow, Mutanza [Listen]
Biography:
James Curnow was born in Port Huron, Michigan in 1943 and raised in Royal Oak, Michigan. He lives in Nicholasville, Kentucky where he is president, composer, and educational consultant for Curnow Music Press, Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky. He also serves as composer-in-residence on the faculty of Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, and as editor of all music publications for The Salvation Army in Atlanta, Georgia.Curnow received his formal training at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and at Michigan State University where he was a euphonium student of Leonard Falcone and a conducting student of Harry Begian. He studied composition and arranging with F. Maxwell Wood, James Gibb, Jere Hutchinson, and Irwin Fischer.
James Curnow has taught instrumental music in the public schools and at the college and university level. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Bandmasters Association, College Band Directors National Association, World Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). In 1980 he received the National Band Association's Citation of Excellence. In 1985, while a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Mr. Curnow was honored as an outstanding faculty member. Among his most recent honors are inclusion in Who's Who in America and being chosen Composer of the Year (1997) by the Kentucky Music Teachers Association and the National Music Teachers Association. He has received annual ASCAP standard awards since 1979.
As a conductor, composer and clinician, Curnow has traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe where his music has received wide acclaim. He has won several international awards for band compositions.
Curnow has been commissioned to write over two hundred works for concert band, brass band, orchestra, choir and various vocal and instrumental ensembles. His published works now number well over four hundred. His most recent commissions include the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the U.S. Army Band, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, 1996 and the Kentucky Music Teachers Association/National Music Teachers Association in 1997.
Source:
Correspondence with the composer.
