The Notre Dame Magnificat Choir is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Liturgy Alive! composition contest:
First Place ($2,250 prize): Eli Nicholas (Albany, Oregon) for his setting of Te Cubrirá for unaccompanied women’s choir (SSA)
Eli Nicholas is a musical theater actor and choral composer from Albany, Oregon. He holds a degree in mathematics from Oregon State University and is an alum of the OSU Chamber Choir. He discovered his love for liturgical music in middle school when he began singing at mass with his parish choir—a habit he has yet to kick. He is currently preparing for a role at the Broadway Rose Theater Company in Portland, Oregon.
Second Place ($1,250 prize): Raphael Fusco for his setting of Te Cubrirá for unaccompanied women’s choir (SSA)
Italian-American composer, keyboardist and conductor Raphael Fusco creates music that engages audiences with lyric melodies, rich harmonies, and energetic rhythms. Hailed by the international press as “one of the most outstanding composers of his generation” (El Mundo), and “a leader in the opera world today” (Operawire), his genre-crossing compositions for voice, chamber ensembles, historical instruments, orchestra, and theatre have been commissioned by Branford Marsalis, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, I Cantori New York, Hartford Chorale, Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra of New York, I Porporini, and members of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras. In 2019 Raphael Fusco released his debut album REMIXED featuring original compositions praised for their “stunning sonic ideas” (Jazz Corner). In 2021 he conducted the premiere of his operas inSOMNIA at the Opernfestival Oberpfalz (“a multifaceted, atmospheric sound-painting” Mittelbaierische Zeitung) and Der Telefonist at the Forum Neue Kunst in Oldenburg. In 2022 he premiered An American Requiem in the Herz Jesu Kirche of Graz and his cantata La canora contesa in Sant’Agata Feltria, Italy. He has received awards from NATS, The American Prize, Phoenix Boys Choir, Fyfe Choral Award, Alienor Harpsichord Competition and many others. Mr. Fusco studied at the Mannes College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Conservatorio G. Verdi di Torino, Paris Schola Cantorum, and Vienna Konservatorium. Since 2019 Raphael Fusco has served as Senior Artist at the University for Performing Arts in Graz, Austria where he is also pursuing a doctoral degree in composition. His artistic research explores expressive agency and empathy in vocal composition.