The following are exerpts from the New York Daily News, Monday, March 6, 2000.

A noteworthy honor Teen Composer's score takes the first place by Clem Richardson

Competition Competition Update Concerts Concert Preview Directors Educational Initiatives E-mail us: nyae@aol.com Home Lecture/Demos Mission New Music Festival NYAE Perspective Performers •Press Coverage Recordings Sponsorship Opportunities Workshops

"This city, which molded the musical talents of George and Ira Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Miles Davis, can add another noted composer to the list. This one is a Brighton Beach teenager who looks more like rocker Joan Jett than the brothers George and Ira. But when it comes to music, Maya Levina is one serious composer. The LaGuardia High School junior's score, "The Four Elements" - written for flute, violin, cello and percussion - beat out 70 other pieces to earn first place in the New York Art Ensemble's annual young composer competition last year (1999). Founded in 1985, the ensemble is dedicated to broadening public appreciation of new American music. Competition was pretty stiff - second place went to a Indiana University sophomore." The article goes on to say... "Levina gets up at 6 a.m. each day so she can board the subway near her home...for a 90-minute ride to LaGuardia High School. She gets out at 3:30 p.m., and heads for the West Village, her favorite neighborhood in the city, for a little hangout time before boarding the train for the ride back home. “Once there, she does homework and practices for several hours before climbing into bed with a book - Stephen Crane and Alexandre Pushkin are some of her favorites. On Saturdays, she is back on the train, headed to Queens College, where she does three college preparation music composition classes back to back. She's been doing that for more than seven years. “In-between, Levina studies physics, goes to practice, Rollerblades, practices more, prepares for upcoming SATs and shoots an occasional - and usually really bad - game of pool. “Levina took up the piano in her native Kiev when she was 5 at her mother's urging. 'My mom was a musician, but she had never been a professional musician,' Levina said. “Here are words to steel a parent's heart against a child's whining: 'At first I only went because my Mom wanted me to go. But then I guess I was pretty good at it, and started to love it.'” The article continues... "Levina describes her style as "not atonal, not classical, something in-between. I'm not into abstract work (12-tone compositions that to the uninitiated do not sound like music.) “She likes writing poetry, but says, 'I can express myself better in music than in words. I can make it lyrical, and sad, and sentimental if I want. I don't even know how long a piece is going to be when I start writing. I just let the music lead me.' Her muse seems to be working just fine. 'I guess I'll keep the style I have now, unless I find something new that interests me,' she said."

NY Daily News Sidebar: American Classical

"So what exactly is New American classical music? The short answer: It's not European. 'American classical music takes all kinds of forms, from jazz to pop from minimal to rock,' said Preston Stahly of the New York Art Ensemble. 'The best way of thinking about what it is is to think about what it isn't.' Stahly, a composer, recalled the tale of how French composer Maurice Ravel refused to teach George Gershwin, saying he had to find his own musical style. 'In that regard, American music is sort of a declaration of independence from traditional classical music and European style classical music.' The giants of this new music are Charles Ives, who was born in Danbury, Conn., and is considered the father of classical American music; George Gershwin and Aaron Copland and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Both Copland and Bernstein died in 1990. 'We have had a decade without any real giant in the leadership, and that has taken American classical music out of the public eye,' Stahly said.' The New York Art Ensemble, said Stahly, 'is trying to encourage young American composers to write for the opera house and concert hall, and we're trying to get orchestras to be more open to and encouraging of American composers."

New York Times-Footlights April 3, 2001 New York Art Ensemble: Tribeca New Music Festival City Events: NYToday Pick, Special Events Nothing is too new or unusual for the New York Art Ensemble. Beginning April 3rd, the ensemble presents the first of three Tribeca New Music Festival concerts, bringing concertgoers' experience into the here and now. Tuesday, April 3, "Still Life With Mic" is to feature looping and multimedia compositions, a format that owes a debt to television news magazines and Web browsing. Less courageous listeners can tune into "American Moderns," invoking the spirit of Charles Ives, Tuesday, April 10, and "Rags to Rachmaninoff," featuring the newest rags of William Bolcom, on April 17.

New York Art Ensemble, Inc.,17 West 64th Street, New York, NY 10023 e-mail: nyae@aol.com