The New York Composers Circle is happy to announce that the winner of its 2020 John Eaton Memorial Composition Competition is Jeffrey Niederhoffer  for his composition Picking Up Where I Left Off. Honorable mention is also awarded to David Hier for his String Quartet in Two Movements and to Zach Gulaboff Davis for his work Prism for piano trio.  Each of these composers will be awarded a free one-year membership in the New York Composers Circle, and the winner will have his piece performed on one of our future concerts.

Jeffrey Niederhoffer obtained his M.M. in composition from the Manhattan School of Music in 1980, where he studied with the late Ursula Mamlok.  He retired after working for 30 years as an attorney and returned to composing in 2017.

David Hier obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at McGill University, and he is currently a Ph.D. student at the Eastman School of Music.  Zach Gulaboff Davis recently completed his D.M.A. in composition from the Peabody Conservatory and currently lives in Jersey City, NJ.

This year we had a large number of outstanding submissions, and the process of making our winning selection was extremely difficult.  At least a ten of the submissions were worthy of recognition, and we regret that we are limited to selecting a single winner.  We hope that all of these composers will consider entering the competition next year.

The New York Composers Circle holds an annual competition each year to recognize outstanding composers in the New York City community who have not yet had none of their compositions performer by our group.  The organization presents concerts and monthly salons in New York City.  Composers in the area are invited to attend our salons and present one of their compositions for discussion and feedback.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, our concerts and salons have been suspended since March 2020.  We hope to resume presenting concerts as soon as circumstances allow, but we will have to hold off until these activities are allowed to resume in New York City.  For this reason, some works planned for 2020 will have to be postponed to 2021.

Further information about the New York Composers Circle is available on our web site http://newyorkcomposerscircle.org/.