Hailed by the press as “one of the best young composers in America”, Kevin Puts is certainly one of the busiest. He has had works commissioned and performed by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. Known for his distinctive and richly colored musical voice, he has received many of today’s most prestigious honors and awards for composition.

Most recently, as the Composer-in-Residence for the Fort Worth Symphony, Mr. Puts has been working on a violin concerto to be premiered by concertmaster Michael Shih. He has been selected as the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival’s 2007 American Composer-in-Residence, and will write a new orchestral piece to be premiered there by the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Puts has also received a Music Alive Residency with the Mobile Symphony, which will premiere a new work in February 2008, and he is writing a clarinet concerto for Bil Jackson and the Colorado Symphony, commissioned by Kathryn Gould and Meet the Composer, to be premiered in 2008-2009

Mr. Puts’ other recent orchestral commissions have included River’s Rush for the Saint Louis Symphony and Leonard Slatkin for the opening celebration of the orchestra’s 125th anniversary season in 2004. Commissioned by Kathryn Gould and Meet the Composer through the “Magnum Opus” project, Symphony No. 3, “Vespertine” was premiered by the Marin Symphony Orchestra in May 2004. The work was subsequently performed by the Santa Rosa Symphony, the New World Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Puts’ honors include the 2003 Benjamin H. Danks Award for Excellence in Orchestral Composition of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2001 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a 2001-2002 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and the 1999 Barlow International Prize for Orchestral Music. Mr. Puts is an accomplished pianist and frequently performs his own works, as well as other contemporary music and works in the standard repertoire.

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. Puts received both his Bachelor’s Degree and a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Eastman School of Music. In the fall of 2006, he joined the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. And Legions Will Rise was written at the request of Makoto Nakura, who plays the marimba tonight, and commissioned by the Japanese newspaper, Kobe Shinbun. It was premiered in October 2001 at Matsukata Hall, Kobe, Japan and received its New York premier last November by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Mr. Puts writes about the work: “Composed in the summer of 2001, And Legions Will Rise is about the power in all of us to transcend during times of tragedy and personal crisis. While I was writing it, I kept imagining one of those war scenes in blockbuster films, with masses of troops made ready before a great battle. I think we have forces like this inside of us, ready to do battle when we are at our lowest moments.”