Conductor, Choirs win award for Manship Artists Residency Project with Artists for Great Marsh, Endicott College, and Rockport Public Schools
Becca Kenneally, Chair of Performing Arts at Endicott College, won 3rd place for The American Prize in Conducting, Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting, School and Youth Division 2025, for her performance conducting the Massachusetts Music Educators All State Treble Chorus Concert in March, 2024. The performance included the song “Patricia’s Meditation,” written by Manship Artist LJ White – a work commissioned by Manship Artists Residency through a joint initiative begun with Artists for the Great Marsh to raise both awareness and support for the fragile Great Marsh ecosystem.
Kenneally also received a shared honorable mention in another category: The American Prize Award for College/University Conductors and Ensembles (smaller programs) in American Music Performance, the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award, along with The Endicott Singers and the choruses of the Rockport Public Schools, for their joint performance of LJ White’s Great Marsh Songs at Rockport’s Shalin Liu Performance Center in February, 2023. The performance included Chris Lawnsby, pianist, of Ipswich, Massachusetts. The piece was commissioned by the Manship Artists Residency and the project was conceived of by Rockport’s Peter Van Demark, founder of Artists for the Great Marsh initiative.
The Rockport school choirs were prepared and led by Patricia Pike, now retired, and they joined with the Endicott Singers to form one large choir under Kenneally’s baton. The performance to a sold out audience raised funds and awareness for the Great Marsh which spans over 20,000 acres from Cape Ann to New Hampshire, and is experiencing damage due to human intervention and climate change.
The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts is the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the performing arts. The American Prize is unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, directors, ensembles and composers in the United States at professional, college/university, community and high school levels, based on submitted recordings. Now in its fifteenth year, The American Prize was founded in 2010 and is awarded annually in many areas of the performing arts. Thousands of artists from all fifty states have derived benefit from their participation in the contests of The American Prize, representing literally hundreds of communities and arts organizations across the nation. Information about the 2025-26 season of contests has been updated on the website and applications are now being accepted, with extended deadlines in October and November. (http://theamericanprize.org)
The American Prize Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting celebrates the artistry of one of the greatest choral conductors of his generation. Dale Warland has made an indelible impression on contemporary choral music, nationally and internationally. In a quarter-century with The Dale Warland Singers (DWS), he shaped an all-professional a cappella ensemble lauded for its exquisite sound, technical finesse, and stylistic range. From that platform, Warland offered stunning performances of traditional repertory and premiered commissioned works on national and international stages. On July 4, 2021, Dale Warland was the recipient of The American Prize National Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. The American Prize is delighted to share the legacy of this legendary artist through the re-naming of the choral conducting award in his honor. For more about this special award and its designee, please visit Dale Warland Award.
Among the many contests of The American Prize, the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music is unique. It recognizes and rewards the best performances of American music by ensembles and individual artists worldwide, based on submitted recordings. Applications are accepted from professional, college/university, community and high school age solo artists, chamber ensembles or conducted ensembles, competing in separate divisions, and from composers with excellent recordings of their works. Beginning in 2017-18, categories were expanded to encompass performances of American music in practically any instrumentation or genre, with very few repertoire restrictions. Focused exclusively on works by American composers from any period and in any style, the contest not only judges performances, but in the case of new or unfamiliar works, the music itself.
Ernst Bacon (1898—1990) was one of that pioneering generation of composers who, along with Thomson, Copland, Harris, and others, found a voice for American music. Winner of a Pulitzer Scholarship (for his Symphony in D minor) and no fewer than three Guggenheim Fellowships, Ernst Bacon set out to create compositions that expressed the vitality and affirmative spirit of our country. It is fitting, and with honor, that The American Prize creates an annual award in the memory of Ernst Bacon, recognizing the finest performances of American music worldwide.
