Paul Austerlitz, Barbara A. Kolb, Alec K. Redfearn will each receive $25,000, no-strings-attached

Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson were both dedicated to the arts all their lives. Mrs. Johnson, who died in 1990, earned a degree in creative writing from Roger Williams College when she was 70. Mr. Johnson invented a new process for mixing metals in jewelry-making and then retired to become a fulltime painter.

Several years before he passed away in 1999, he began negotiating with The Rhode Island Foundation to design what has now become a $1.2 million artists fellowship program in music composition, literature, and visual arts, offering among the highest no-strings awards in the nation.

The Foundation announced today the first three MacColl Johnson Fellows in Music Composition: ethnomusicologist, composer, and professor Paul Austerlitz; much-acclaimed modern composer Barbara A. Kolb; and accordionist and eclectic composer Alec K. Redfearn.

Awards to writers will be made in 2006 and visual artists in 2007.

"We were honored to work with Mr. Johnson during his lifetime to model this progam, and I think he would be very pleased with the first winners," said Carol Golden, Foundation Senior Vice President for Philanthropic Services, who held conversations with Mr. Johnson for nearly seven years.

"His was both a remarkable act of generosity and a true commitment to Rhode Island artists,"
she said.

Johnson was born in Providence and lived there and in Little Compton all his life. During his career, he invented a "damascene" process that joined gold, copper, and bronze in metalwork. He was a design director for Reed and Barton silversmiths. When he retired, he bought the Mill House Studio in Tiverton and devoted the remainder of his artistic life to painting and metal design.

His wife, Margaret MacColl Johnson, came from the distinguished MacColl family, which had its American beginnings in the nation's textile industry, specifically Lorraine Manufacturing in Pawtucket. A public relations expert with a second career in academia, Mrs. Johnson was a key supporter of the MacColl Electronic Music Studio at Brown, which was named for her father.

In 1973, she sponsored the 19 Mile Festival, a two-week show of contemporary music at Brown.

Fellowships will "free time and resources for creative process"
"The most precious commodity a society can offer to its artists is 'time'," emphasizes Foundation Program Officer Claude Elliott, who administered the first year's selection of MacColl Johnson Fellows.

"All three composers were clear that the fellowships will buy them time, whether it is the ability to work a bit less at other pursuits and concentrate more fully on their music, or to enlist the resources of other musicians to test and rehearse their compositions, or any way they choose to re-focus their time."

Although the fellowship is unrestricted, Elliott said artists are encouraged to work on professional development during the one-year duration, such as exhibitions, commissions, performances, residencies, publications, productions, and to work with mentors.

Elliott said the Foundation received 40 applications from in-state composers, representing a variety of music disciplines including classical, contemporary, jazz, nontraditional, and world music genres, a number that surprised both the five-member, out-of-state panel and the awardees themselves.

"On one hand, it proves the point that no one knew that Rhode Island had so many composers working 'below the radar screen,' probably at two or three jobs to support their real passion. It also suggests that Mr. Johnson's choice of music composition as one of the couple's three disciplines was appropriate," Elliott concluded.

Elliott said the selection criteria required that composers:

• Demonstrate artistic excellence, maturity, and a deepening perspective of ideas, expression, and technique
• Be a resident of Rhode Island at the time of the application and during the one-year tenure of the fellowship, and
• Demonstrate that the fellowship will provide significant opportunities to advance their work and their level of recognition.

Brief biographies
Finland-born Paul Austerlitz is a composer, musician, and professor of ethnomusicology, Brown University. A compelling aspect of his research interest in traditional Dominican, Cuban, and Haitian music is the fusion of Caribbean music and jazz. His compositions present a seamless structure of control, experimentation, and improvisation on the tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, intertwined with poetry. His music presents original and interesting ideas, is rigorous, multicultural, and expands the jazz repertoire.

He was a 2004 artist-in-residence at Yaddo Artists' Colony. He has received Fulbright Foundation research and teaching grants for Finland and the Dominican Republic. Forthcoming in 2005 is his latest book Jazz Consciousness, through the Wesleyan University Press.

There is clarity about his career, music legacy, and goals of his fellowship. He plans to continue his research, compose, record new works with local musicians, hire a publicist, maintain a comprehensive web site, and begin to market himself as a lead musician.

Barbara A. Kolb is among the most professionally-recognized composers and active advocates for contemporary music in Rhode Island. Her music is colorful, expertly crafted, characterized by interwoven, impressionistic textures, and is informed by literature and visual arts. Kolb has received many awards including three Tanglewood Fellowships, four MacDowell Fellowships, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and commissions from the New York and Rhode Island Philharmonics. She recently completed a Meet the Composer residency in Providence. The fellowship will assist her in developing an audience in Rhode Island for a contemporary music series, Vibe of the Venue, and increase her visibility and accessibility as a Rhode Island composer.

Alec K. Redfearn is an accordion player and self taught composer who creates music that is experimental, challenging, evocative, and personal. His creative process involves collaborating with a collective of musicians and performance artists. His compositions are informed by the souls of John Cage, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Tom Waits, and Arabic and Eastern European folk and dance music.

His music layers vocals and incorporates trance-repetition and deceptive rhythms. The goal of his fellowship is to focus on his current interest in expanding the song-structure of his compositions. He plans to work on longer compositions for a larger ensemble, to be played outdoors. The fellowship will provide more time to write, rehearse, record, and tour.