ART MUSEUM COMPOSER COMPETITION
**Event generously supported by Elaine and Larry Shay**
Each year we hold a friendly competition for our student composers. While the details vary slightly from year to year, it basically goes like this:
• Compose a one-minute composition for the New Music Ensemble.
• Compositions based on a specific piece of art in the gallery.
• Be adventurous, have fun.
The compositions are submitted anonymously, then premiered by the New Music Ensemble in the College Art Gallery among the art that inspired the music.
A panel of judges determine the winners, based on whatever criteria they want. There is also an audience favorite prize.
• First Prize: $250
• Second Prize: $100
• Third Prize: $50
• Audience Favorite: $100
**Event generously supported by Elaine and Larry Shay**
Each year we hold a friendly competition for our student composers. While the details vary slightly from year to year, it basically goes like this:
• Compose a one-minute composition for the New Music Ensemble.
• Compositions based on a specific piece of art in the gallery.
• Be adventurous, have fun.
The compositions are submitted anonymously, then premiered by the New Music Ensemble in the College Art Gallery among the art that inspired the music.
A panel of judges determine the winners, based on whatever criteria they want. There is also an audience favorite prize.
• First Prize: $250
• Second Prize: $100
• Third Prize: $50
• Audience Favorite: $100
2025
Climate Matters: Our Changing and Resilient Planet
Drawn from the art collection at Grand Valley State University, this exhibition features work by artists engaged with the Earth and our impact on it. Some examine the complex interrelatedness of our planet, human and environmental adaptability, and the unpredictability of nature. Others call attention to the consequences of industrial exploitation, rapid growth, and the pursuit of unsustainable resources.
1st Prize: Adam West
2nd Prize: Zach Haverkamp
3rd Prize: David Grimard
Audience Favorite Prize: David Drimard
Judges: Donovan Anderson (Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, GVSU), Cindy Meyers Foley (Director and CEO, Grand Rapids Art Museum), Letitia Jap (Affiliate Professor of Violin, GVSU), Olivia Kieffer (Visiting Professor of Music, GVSU), David Westphal (Entrepreneur, watch collector)
2024
Full Circle: Teaching, Creating, and Curating
This exhibition brings together the sabbatical work of Prof. Bill Hosterman, who teaches drawing and printmaking in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at GVSU, and a selection of works from the K. Caraccio Printing Studio and Collection in New York City. Hosterman first met master printer, artist, and educator Kathy Caraccio as an undergraduate. A year later he interned at her printmaking workshop, an experience that proved pivotal in his career. This exhibition pairs Hosterman’s recent work with prints Caraccio has collected over her more than 45-year career in a celebration of printmaking, mentorship, and liberal arts education.
1st Prize: Jordan Roberts
2nd Prize: Jordan Roberts
3rd Prize: Christian Glascock
Audience Favorite Prize: Natalie Feldpausch
Judges: Charles Burke (President & CEO Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park), Jennifer Drake (Dean, GVSU College of Liberal Arts & Sciences), Bill Hosterman (the artist!), Olivia Kieffer (Visiting Professor of Music, GVSU), Henry Luttikhuizen (GVSU College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Scholar-in-Residence)
2023
Convergence: Crack in the Glass Ceiling
This exhibition represents the pushing of boundaries into spaces that cultivate growth and coordinated expansion. Breaking barriers helps us to grow and mature in our thought processes regarding culture, community, and experiences. Operating out of purpose and passion releases us from the confines of our comfort zones and allows viewers to experience a (proverbial) cracking of the glass ceiling. This unique group of artists create vibrant contemporary pieces that include traditional elements of art while blurring the lines between street and contemporary works.
This exhibition is co-created with MUSE GR, curated by Stephen and Taylor Smith. Stephen and Taylor Smith are the owners of Muse GR, an interactive art gallery and event space on the Westside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Through Muse, Stephen and Taylor connect with the community using art and creativity to encourage positive transformation and discovery of one’s purpose and passion.
1st Prize: Christian Glascock
2nd Prize: Jordan Roberts
3rd Prize: Natalie Feldpausch
Audience Favorite Prize: Christian Glascock
Judges: Timothy Chester (former Director, Grand Rapids Public Museum), Sookkyung Cho (GVSU Associate Professor of Piano), Fatma Mili (GVSU Provost), John Schuster-Craig (retired GVSU Professor of Music), Stephen Smith (Director, MUSE GR Gallery)
2022
Tenth Anniversary Art Gallery Composer Competition
Our annual composition competition continues as GVSU student composers create 60-second works in response to artwork on display in the newly renovated Louis Armstrong Theatre Lobby. To celebrate our tenth year of the competition, sixteen former prizewinning composers will be composing new works as well, and returning to campus to compete for alumni prizes. A judging panel chooses cash awards and the audience favorite wins a prize. All music will be performed by GVSU’s own New Music Ensemble. This event is generously sponsored by Larry and Elaine Rutowski Shay.
Student Competition Results
1st Prize: Christian Glascock
2nd Prize: Noah Braley
3rd Prize: Ray King
Audience Favorite Prize: Christian Glascock
Alumni Competition Results
1st Prize: $500 plus $500 commission from the New Music Ensemble, Reese Rehkopf
2nd Prize: $250, Tim Lester
3rd Prize: $100, Bradley Saniga
Audience Favorite Prize: $250, Reese Rehkopf
Judges: Aaron Doty (Vice President and General Manager, Grand Rapids Symphony), Shelley Irwin (host and producer for The WGVU Morning Show), Philomena Mantella (GVSU President), John Schuster-Craig (retired GVSU Professor of Music), Lazaro Vega (jazz director and host, Blue Lake Radio)
2018
Ebb & Flow: Explorations in Painting by Herbert Murrie
For over 40 years, Herbert Murrie had a successful advertising and design career based in Chicago. As a result of his artistic upbringing and personal drive, he often returned to the studio in pursuit of a more spontaneous and freeing output. In 1988, Murrie began painting seriously and by the late 1990’s he was exhibiting regularly. Over the next 10 to 15 years evidence of his freed state leapt off the canvas. Controlled manipulation of paint and color bore witness to his understanding of design, while his process of working intuitively noted elements of the artistic movements he grew up with in the mid-20th century.
1st Prize: Reese Rehkopf
2nd Prize (tie): Reese Rehkopf, Tim Lester
Audience Prize: Reese Rehkopf
Judges: Monica Johnstone (Director of GVSU CLAS Communications and Advancement), Carrie Morris (GVSU Associate Professor of Dance), Herbert Murrie (artist), Christine Rener (Director of GVSU Pew FTLC and Vice Provost for Instructional Development and Innovation), John Schuster-Craig (retired GVSU Professor of Music)
2017
Comfortably Numb
Comfortably Numb, by Nayda Collazo-Llorens, is an ongoing archive consisting of clippings from magazines and other printed matter. Over 2,000 framed images comprise this amalgam of sampled visual information functioning as detritus and fragments of data. The work explores our perceptual engagement with the incessant media overload that we seem to seek and endure.
1st Prize: Niko Schroeder
2nd Prize: Steve Rothstein
3rd Prize (tie): Niko Schroeder
3rd Prize: (tie): Ray King
Audience Prize: Niko Schroeder
Judges: Beth Gibbs (GVSU Associate Professor of Music), John Schuster-Craig (GVSU Professor of Music), Jeremy Kosmicki (Head Brewmaster, Founders Brewing), Nayda Collazo-Llorens (Stuart and Barbara Padnos Distinguished Artist), Marcia Haas (wife of GVSU President Tom Haas)
2016
Great Lakes: Image & Word
The lakes and water systems of the Great Lakes are a majestic natural resource too little known outside of our region. This exhibit features sixteen poets and visual artists — each with a connection to the Great Lakes — In artistic pairings designed to result in new collaborative works with a Great Lakes theme.
1st Prize: Niko Schroeder
2nd Prize (tie): Niko Schroeder
2nd Prize (tie): Jack Sligh
Audience Prize: Niko Schroeder
Judges: Carla Hill (President and CEO, West Michigan Symphony), Alexander Miller (Assistant Principal Oboist, Grand Rapids Symphony, composer), John Schuster-Craig (GVSU Professor of Music), Dale Schriemer (GVSU Professor of Music), Elaine Shay (event sponsor)
2015
River Tattoo
Adhesive vinyl on glass, 8’ x 85’ overall dimensions, Jim Cogswell, artist. River Tattoo celebrates the Grand River and the Blue Bridge spanning it. It is made from thousands of pieces of adhesive vinyl applied directly to the glass. The vinyl shapes are based on ink drawings of animal-like forms, collages made from adhesive shelf paper, and photographs of ordinary houseplants, digitally hybridized, mirrored, and multiplied. The river flows through it in a pattern of rhythmic lines rising and falling around the bend in the building, with the bridge reflected in them. The mural’s clouds, its flora, its teeming bestiary of creatures both sinister and benign seem to inhabit the world reflected in the glass, suggesting that the space around us is full of possibilities we have not yet begun to imagine.
1st Prize: Julia Gjebic
2nd Prize: Ashlee Busch
3rd Prize: Weston Bernath
Audience Prize: Ashlee Busch
Judges: Christine Chamberlain, Jim Cogswell, Christian Gaines, John Schuster-Craig, Elaine Shay
2014
The History of Space Photography
From the earliest black-and-white photographs of the moon to the most recent images taken from the Mars Curiosity rover, The History of Space Photography exhibition features 50 noteworthy images from the last 50 years of space exploration. These stunning and beautiful visuals, including video projections of celestial animations, were captured by astronauts, astronomers, and data visualization experts. Grand Valley State University Art Gallery is pleased to share these historic cosmic images with you. The History of Space Photography exhibition is organized by the California/ International Arts Foundation and is guest curated by Jay Belloli, former Director of Gallery Programs at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA.
1st Prize: Eamon Carmody
2nd Prize: Richie Arndorfer
3rd Prize: Ben De Leeuw
Audience Prize: Ben De Leeuw
Judges: Liliana Mahave, John Martin, Carrie Morris, Ellen Pool, John Schuster-Craig
2013
Mystery, Magic, and Mayhem: Wonders from the American Museum of Magic
Magic has long been a topic of both interest and controversy that has enthralled audiences for hundreds of years. For some, it’s spiritualism and for others, it’s strictly a performance art. This exhibition of magic history provides a window into the worlds of illusion, conjuring, legerdemain, mentalism and escape artistry. On loan from the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan, are over thirty stunning graphic visuals and related objects associated with legends such as Thurston, Houdini, and Michigan’s own Harry Blackstone, Sr.
1st Prize: Bradley Saniga
2nd Prize: Mark Lyle
3rd Prize: Bradley Saniga
Audience Prize: Bradley Saniga
Judges: Ashlee Busch, Gayle Davis, Henry Duitman, Sofia Mahave, Henry Matthews
2011
Ravines Revisited
Photographic essays by GVSU faculty artists Dellas Henke, Stanley Krohmer and Anthony Thompson, explored the beauty and complexity of the landscape, the effects of erosion and our complex relationship to the Allendale Campus Ravines. Complimenting the exhibit was work in a variety of media by students and additional faculty. Held in conjunction with Grand Valley's 50th Anniversary.
1st Prize: Adam Cuthbert
2nd Prize: Kaja Lill
3rd Prize: Kaja Lill
Audience Prize: Bradley Saniga
Judges: Shawn Bible, Henry Matthews, Todd Reynolds, John Schuster-Craig
2010
Enduring Traditions: History and Meaning in Southwest Pueblo Indian Pottery
Over one hundred years ago pottery making by Pueblo Indians in the American Southwest was transformed from the manufacture of utilitarian objects for everyday use to craft production for the tourist trade. Featured in this exhibition are distinctive ceramics from several pueblos, collected in the late 19th through the mid 20th century, including works by Maria Martinez, one of the most famous Native American potters of the 20th century. This is the first of a series of exhibitions planned by the GVSU Art Gallery that will focus on the rich diversity of the Native American cultures of the Americas. (works created in collaboration with student choreographers)
1st Prize: Nick Ortquist
2nd Prize: Ashlee Busch
3rd Prize: Ashlee Busch
Audience Prize: Nick Ortquist
Judges: Henry Matthews, Pablo Mahave-Veglia, Calin Radulescu, John Schuster-Craig, Kathryn Stieler
2009
The Paris of Touoluse-Lautrec, Bonnard, and Vuillard
For many people, the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard are emblematic of lithography in fin-de-siècle Paris. Also included were lithography-enlivened book jackets, advertisements, sheet music, literary journals, as well as humor magazines.
Many of the images in this exhibition reflect the late 19th-century artists' indebtedness to Japanese woodblock prints and photograpy. French artists enthusiastically appropriated design strategies long used by Japanese printmakers including a-symmetry, flat color, contour line, and unusual points of view.
1st Prize: Adam Cuthbert
2nd Prize: Tyler Smith
3rd Prize: Ray King