The National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) is pleased to announce composer Jodi Goble has won first prize in the 2024 NATS Art Song Composition Award for her song cycle, “Sea Creatures.”

Goble will receive a $2,000 prize and her composition will be performed in recital as part of the 58th NATS national conference (June 28 - July 2, 2024) in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“Sea Creatures” is a collection of art songs for soprano and piano, featuring text from multiple poets. Last year, soprano Shelby VanNordstrand together with Goble on piano performed and released recordings of several songs as part of the digital album, “Storms & Stars.”

1. The Sea (Katherine Mansfield)
2. I would bathe in the sky’s blue (Helen Birch Bartlett)
3. Young Sea (Carl Sandburg)
4. Gulls (Winifred Bryher)
5. The world below the brine (Walt Whitman)
6. Sand-Memory (Frederick R. McCreary)

“I was so delighted to find out that I won the NATS Art Song Composition Award this year,” Goble said. “I’ve been submitting song cycles to this competition on and off since 2008 and have six other pieces that have finished in the finals. ’Sea Creatures’ is lucky number seven, and it’s a lot of fun to play — and also to sing, I hope! — so I’m very happy that it’s the one Shelby VanNordstrand and I get to perform at the conference this summer.”

Goble explained the song cycle was centered around its opening poem, “Sea,” by Katherine Mansfield.

“[It] turns the sea herself into a siren trying to lure the song’s protagonist away from the safety of the beach,” Goble added. “I knew I wanted to make that setting a focal point of the new cycle I was writing for Shelby, so we went looking for more poems that would match the scope and power of the Mansfield. It turns out that lots of poets, both famous and lesser-known, have had compelling things to write about the ocean and human beings’ relationship with it — so it was really a matter of narrowing all those incredible poems down to a manageable number.”

Previously, Goble received second prize in the 2017 NATS Art Song Composition Award. She was a finalist in 2008, 2018, 2021, and 2022, and she received an honorable mention in 2016.

“I’m so grateful to the NATS Art Song Composition Award just for existing,” Goble said. “Back in 2008, when I was first beginning to compose, getting the first email that I had advanced to the final round was such an incredible confidence boost and an encouragement to continue writing. Thank you so much for continuing to welcome and recognize composers who contribute to this amazing art form!”

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NATS awarded second prize and $1,000 to Cecilia Livingston for “hyacinth,” which is a set of five songs for soprano/mezzo-soprano featuring text by Duncan McFarlane. Third prize, the Judith Cloud Award established by Carol Mikkelsen, along with $500 was awarded to Scott Eggert for “Dream Songs,” a cycle of six songs for soprano and piano with texts from William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Adjudicators also awarded an honorable mention to Pol Vanfleteren for “What Reality?” — a cycle of seven songs for soprano and piano with text provided by the composer.

As with every year, NATS is committed to keeping the composers and their submissions anonymous in the adjudication process as to evaluate only the music itself. Preliminary adjudicators Mutsumi Moteki, Jeffrey Ryan (2021 Winner), and Anne Beloncik Schantz selected 12 finalists from 45 submissions. Composers Lori Laitman and Kurt Erickson (2020 Winner) served as the final adjudicators, emphasizing the high caliber of this year’s entries.

The NATS Art Song Composition Award, established in 1983, continues to inspire and encourage the creation of quality vocal literature. American composer Lori Laitman generously sponsors the first and second cash prizes, and she provides winners with a two-year paid NATS membership. The competition is open to any composer, professional or student, whose submitted work meets the prescribed requirements.

Recent winners have included Rene Orth (2023), Ericsson Hatfield (2022), Jeffrey Ryan (2021), Kurt Erickson (2020), Philip Lasser (2019), Benjamin C.S. Boyle (2018), Matt Boehler (2017), David Conte (2016), Robert Patterson (2014), Melissa Dunphy (2012), and David Sisco (2010).

The 2024 winners join a prestigious list of past prize winners who contribute to the rich tapestry of vocal music. As NATS looks forward to the next iteration of this competition, the association remains committed to promoting the collaboration of singers and composers in the creation of new vocal works.

Applications for the 2025 Art Song Composition Award will be accepted starting June 1, 2024, with a submission deadline of December 1, 2024. The NATS Art Song Composition Award program is led by Carol Mikkelsen, coordinator, and Lori Laitman, advisor.

2024 Winners and Finalists:

First Place: “Sea Creatures” by Jodi Goble
Second Place: “hyacinth” by Cecilia Livingston
Third Place (Judith Cloud Award established by Carol Mikkelsen): “Dream Songs” by Scott Eggert
Honorable Mention: “What Reality?” by Pol Vanfleteren 

Additional Finalists:

“she conjures” by Lisa Neher
“What You Tell Me” by Scott Ordway
“Temptress Helen: Greek Legend Verse Excerpts” by Peter Dayton
“Between Ground and Sky” by Tiag Yi Tan
“absence, presence” by Joseph Rubenstein
“Evensong” by Ronald Combs
“Love Songs on Poems of Michael Ondaatje” by Ian Cusson
“Satilla Shores” by Jon Grier

About Jodi Goble

Award-winning composer Jodi Goble (she/her) writes text-based, character-driven music fueled by her extensive background as a vocal coach and song-specialist collaborative pianist. Her compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally and featured on National Public Radio. Her art songs are published in anthologies by New Music Shelf and NorthStar Music. Upcoming and recent commissions include the Savannah VOICE Festival, Seaglass Theater, Really Spicy Opera, Voices of the Pearl, Blonde Roast Opera Project, the Durward Ensemble, and Laura Strickling’s GRAMMY® Award-nominated 40@40. Recent performances: Songfest, the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago Spring Lieder Lounge, the ASEAN New Music Festival, Calliope’s Call, the National Opera Center in New York City, the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris, San Francisco Opera’s Atrium Sessions, and Omaha Under the Radar. She is a 2023-24 Iowa Arts Council Project Grant awardee for her upcoming chamber opera The Miller’s Daughter.

Goble is a full teaching professor in the department of music and theatre at Iowa State University, music director of the ISU Opera Studio, and the official collaborative pianist for the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in Iowa. Learn more at jodigoble.com.

About Cecilia Livingston

Cecilia Livingston specializes in music for voice. She is composer-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company (2022-) and was composer-in-residence at Glyndebourne (2019-22). Her music is driven by melody, mixing styles from minimalism to The American Songbook to create work that is lyrical and unsettling. Livingston’s residencies at the COC and Glyndebourne build on her two-year fellowship at The American Opera Project in New York, and her current projects include an opera adaptation of “Fugitive Pieces” with poet and novelist Anne Michaels. Livingston’s music has been heard at Glyndebourne, Bang on a Can’s summer festival, Toronto’s Nuit Blanche festival, in recital at Koerner Hall and Carnegie Hall, with Soundstreams, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and will be released on recording with Deutsche Grammophon in 2024. She is represented by Stratagem Artists in New York. Learn more at cecilialivingston.com.

About Scott Eggert

Wisconsin-born composer Scott Howard Eggert (b. 1949) was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (BFA, 1971), the University of Chicago (MA, 1979), and the University of Kansas (DMA, 1982), where he studied music theory and composition with such diverse composers as John Downey, Ralph Shapey, Easley Blackwood, Roger Sessions, and John Pozdro. Eggert was awarded the inaugural Dean’s Award in Music Composition at UWM, and won a full tuition scholarship and stipend at Chicago. His master’s degree composition, Sonata for Two Pianos, was premiered at Shapey’s renowned Contemporary Chamber Players concerts. He graduated with doctoral honors from KU and subsequently served on the music faculty at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania for 30 years, teaching music theory and composition, and composing music in a wide variety of mediums.

Eggert has received numerous commissions for new music both from individuals and organizations, and his work has been performed throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe and South America. Eggert’s largest commission came in 2017 when he was asked by Penn State University choral director Christopher Kiver, to compose a work to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice that ended World War I. The resulting hour-long cantata, MEMORIA, was premiered on November the 11th (Armistice Day) 2018 at Penn State. Other noteworthy Eggert compositions include the widely performed violin and cello duo, Dance Card (2001); the solo cello work Uccello (2005), played at Carnegie Hall and throughout the Americas by Louisiana State University cellist Dennis Parker; the organ works, Myceane: Graveshaft V (1998) and Hurly Burly (2010), commissioned by the American Guild of Organists; the piano solo Quincunx (2004), commissioned and premiered by GRAMMY Award-nominated pianist Petronel Malan; and Peacock Pie (2016), a cycle of 30 songs on poems by Walter de la Mare. Eggert recently completed a commissioned organ work, the Michelangelo Fantasy (2020) for Market Square Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where organ virtuoso Ken Cowan played the premiere. At present, he is at work on his first opera.