Academy honors music professor with fellowship

Edward Jacobs, a music professor at East Carolina University, has won the $15,000 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Founded in 1898, the academy annually honors more than 50 composers, artists, architects and writers with cash awards ranging from $2,500 to $75,000.

“It’s a wonderful honor to be recognized alongside so many distinct composers,” Jacobs said. “I’m flattered to be included among such a wonderful group.”

Jacobs teaches composition and musicology at ECU. He is the director of the New Music Festival at ECU and his compositions have been performed by trumpeter Britton Theurer, choreographer Patricia Weeks and the Meridian Arts Ensemble. His piece, al momento, for cello and pre-recorded sound, was commissioned and premiered by cellist Kelley Mikkelsen.

The academy awards will be presented at an annual May ceremony in New York City. The academy’s 250 members nominate candidates for the music awards. The Charles Ives Fellowship is in honor of Harmony Ives, the wife of the Pulitzer Prize winning composer Charles Ives. The award, which has been given since 1970, is considered a distinct honor.

“The Charles Ives Fellowship is named for an icon of American Music,” said Wade Hobgood, Chancellor of the NC School of the Arts. “The American Academy of Arts of Letters selection for the award represents significant recognition of an individual’s past and future achievement contributing to the advancement of music in America. Ed Jacobs and East Carolina University are to be congratulated on this distinction.”

Jacobs studied at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and earned his master’s degree in composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his doctorate of musical arts from Columbia University. His composition teachers include Mario Davidovsky, Andrew Imbrie, Chou Wen-Chung and Olly Wilson.