Artist of the Year Honorable Mention: Stephen Paulus

2005 Artist of the Year Honorable Mention: Stephen Paulus

Star Tribune

Last update: December 30, 2005 - 11:52 AM

This was a big year for Stephen Paulus, one of Minnesota's foremost -- and busiest -- composers. In October Paulus' Preludes for Piano was given its New York City premiere by Wonny Song, and that same month on the campus of Harvard University the Boston Chamber Music Society unveiled his "Dream Suite" for flute, piano, violin, viola and cello. The event of the year for Paulus was the premiere by the Minnesota Orchestra in November of his powerful and poignant oratorio on a text by Michael Dennis Browne, "To be Certain of the Dawn," a work dealing with the difficult subject of Christian anti-Semitism. Paulus' music appears on four CDs released this year, including one by the King's College Choir. A co-founder (with Libby Larsen) of the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composers Forum, Paulus, to paraphrase W.S. Gilbert, is the very model of a modern major composer. He has forged his own, very American musical voice and a style increasingly rich in color, invention and expressive depth.

MICHAEL ANTHONY