BMI Foundation Introduces the Jeffery Cotton Awards

The BMI Foundation is very pleased to introduce the Jeffery Cotton Awards, an additional grant for which presenting organizations may apply as a part of their proposal for the 2015 General Grants.

BMI composer Jeffery Cotton (1957-2013) won three BMI Student Composer Awards, was a Fulbright and Guggenheim fellow, and was the recipient of the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among many other honors.

During his tenure as resident composer for the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble in New York, Jeffery established the “Second Helpings” concert series, which offered reprise performances of recent works in novel performance spaces. This innovative series addressed the issue of momentum for new musical compositions, which are often successfully premiered but never heard again.

The Jeffery Cotton Awards are intended to defray the cost of rehearsing and presenting in concert the second performance of a chamber or orchestral work by an American composer.