Evanston—Multi-talented doctoral piano student Jonathan Howard Katz has won the fifth annual Robert Helps Prize in Composition, sponsored by the University of South Florida School of Music. He receives a $10,000 cash award and the premiere performance of his winning work,Talking of Michelangelo (2009), at the 2010 Robert Helps Festival on February 12 in Tampa, Florida.  Jurors for the competition were Louis Andriessen, Brad Diamond, Svetozar Ivanov, and Paul Reller.

The annual Robert Helps Composition Competition and Festival has a three-fold mission: to encourage the development and enhance the career opportunities of emerging young composers; to honor the contributions of the late pianist and composer Robert Helps; and to enhance the reputation of the University of South Florida as an valuable resource for composers and music lovers.  The festival, in particular, focuses on interaction between students and master figures in modern American music performance and thought.

The winner of the 2007 Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Auditions, Jonathan Katz has performed throughout the United States, including appearances in Boston’s Jordan Hall and on the Evenings with Schoenberg series presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  As a composer, his music has been performed at numerous festivals and other venues, with recent works including the song cycle Chalices from My Hands (2008), and the first six of a projected twelve Trichord Preludes for piano (2009).  Katz received a bachelor of music degree from Indiana University in Bloomington and a master of music degree from New England Conservatory, both in piano performance.  A student of Ursula Oppens during his doctoral studies at Northwestern, Katz’s dissertation involves the documentation of solo piano works of composers born since 1970.