Eric Chasalow, Professor of Composition at Brandeis University and Director of BEAMS, the Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio, has been selected to receive a 2003 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Music.

The award honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges a composer who has arrived at his or her own voice. (Three other composers were selected for this award: Zhou Long, Jeffrey Mumford, and Roberto Sierra).
The winners were selected by a committee of Academy members. A total of 16 awards will be presented at the Academy's annual Ceremonial in May. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy.

Eric D. Chasalow holds a DMA from Columbia University where his principal composition teacher was Mario Davidovsky and where he studied flute with Harvey Sollberger. His music has been performed in Hong Kong, Stockholm, Lyon, Boston, Bourges, New York, and Bratislava. He holds awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music is published by G. Schirmer, McGinnis & Marx (New York) and Edition Bim (Bulle, Switzerland) and appears on CDs from New World Records, ICMC, SEAMUS, and RRRecords.

A new CD of Chasalow's chamber, electronic, and orchestral music, Left to His Own Devices, was just released by New World Records in February 2003. The works on this disc, are "crafted in a musical language as subtle and complex as it is tactile and expressive. This, his second disc on New World, charts the continuing growth and development of an exciting young American composer." New World Records