Original Music
About Original Music
Every song starts with an idea - and there’s no one right way to bring it to life. The Original Music discipline celebrates young songwriters, composers, producers, and musicians creating music of their own, from original songs and instrumental compositions to digital productions and improvisational pieces. Whatever your sound, style, or approach, we want to hear what happens when you turn your ideas into music.
Meet some review panelists!
Creative Youth Award submissions are reviewed by accomplished songwriters, composers, musicians, producers, educators, and music industry professionals who bring a range of creative perspectives and experience to the process. Meet a few of the Original Music panelists who help recognize and celebrate the work of young music creators across the Bay Area:
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Beth Custer is a San Francisco based composer, performer, bandleader and recording artist. Beth is a member of the live music-to-silent film ensemble the Club Foot Orchestra, the 4th world music group Trance Mission, and the trip-hop duo Eighty Mile Beach. She leads the clarinet quartet Clarinet Thing and co-leads the funky ensemble Russian Telegraph named after two of San Francisco's hills.
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Giacomo is an Italian-born guitarist and musicologist who teaches a wide range of historical and practical music courses at the University of San Francisco and UC Santa Cruz. He has premiered more than two dozen new works for justly-tuned, electric, and classical guitars, and released several recordings for Populist, Cold Blue, Pinna, Spectropol, Paper Garden Records, and his own impressum. Giacomo is a member of Ninth Planet New Music (the chamber group formerly known as Wild Rumpus), and an occasional performer for New Music Works, sfSound, and other Bay Area ensembles.
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Zachary Watkins is an Oakland based composer, electronic musician and educator. He holds degrees in Composition and Electronic Music from Cornnish College of the Arts and Mills College where he studied with practicing composers and musicians from aronud the world. Recent Kronos String Quartet commissions "Peace Be Till" and "Black Body Radiance" are regulary performed by the renowned quartet. His 2024 album "Affirmative Action" is released by Sige Records and documents three concerns: social practice / collaboration, notation and tuning.
Awardee Highlights
