Kahn Awards were established in 1985 and are funded by a $1 million endowment from the late Esther Kahn (SED’55, Hon.’86) and are presented each year to three College of Fine Arts students in the final semester of their undergraduate or graduate studies. Winners are chosen based on proposals from students detailing how they would use the award to launch their careers, their concern for social issues, and their take on the artist’s role in contemporary society.

On the panel this year were Deborah Kahn (SED’67) and Linda Green (SED’63), daughters of Esther and the late Albert Kahn (SED’59,’62), along with Deborah’s husband, Harris Miller, and their son, Derek Miller. The arts leaders were Louise Kennedy, WBUR senior editor, education, Peggy Fogelman, newly installed director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Jane Pappalardo (CFA’65), a philanthropist and chair of the Council for the Arts at MIT.

Each of this year’s recipients has traveled a long way before reaching this moment in their lives. Such is the case of Felipe Pinto D’ Aguiar (CFA 2016) who assisted School of Music for his doctoral degree. He graduated from playing folk/pop in Chile and today is composing for a number of traditional Chinese instruments and will be travelling to Shanghai later this year. ( Photo by Cydney Scott)

In an interviewed by BU Today, D’Aguiar tells he grew up in Santiago, Chile, and started as a self -taught player of acoustic guitar and folk/pop around age 12, then moved on to playing jazz and later classical music. He started writing music by the time he was 16.

He attended in Chile the Instituto Profesional Escuela Moderna de Música, in Santiago, where he earned a degree in music education. He then taught music in both high school and university classes. Later on he earned a master’s at Australia’s University of Melbourne, where he studied composition. “While there, one of his pieces was recorded by theMelbourne Symphony Orchestra. A friendship between his Melbourne teacher Elliott Gyger and Joshua Fineberg, a CFA professor of music, was instrumental in bringing him to Comm Ave, along with the combination of BU’s music program and the city’s lively music scene. D’Aguiar says that he does most of his composing now on a computer, not a guitar. But he is also beginning to incorporate more purely electronic sounds in his music.”

“I now feel more comfortable knowing what I want to take from the electronic world,” he says. “They are like amazing toys, and you can easily get lost just playing with the toys. But now I have more clarity on what my music needs and how my music can benefit from those tools.” On his website, D’Aguiar writes: “More than an architect of sound, I consider myself a narrator of sonic journeys and my intention is to propose—through microcosms or imaginary landscapes—moments of reflection for exploring part of the subjective impressions that subtly link the individual with the collective.”

“One essential item D’Aguiar plans to buy with some of his Kahn Award money is a new computer, which will allow him to continue his composition work. But he’ll use the bulk of it to support another project, he says. Last year, he spent 10 days studying at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, through a connection made by his mentor Fineberg. D’Aguiar is now writing a piece for traditional Chinese instruments, and the award will help fund his travel to Shanghai in September to attend rehearsals and performances by a conservatory ensemble. And later in the year, he and the ensemble will travel to Salzburg, Austria, for more performances.

Writing for instruments he knew little or nothing about until recently has required a change in the way he usually composes. “- Normally when I compose I am thinking of the instruments in a more idiomatic way. I am working on this piece in a more abstract way, and the orchestration will come later—it’ll be the last part of the process, rather than writing from the instruments-.”

The other two Kahn Award winners were : Ghazal Hassani, who studied Russian literature and language at the University of Tehran in her native Iran and a certificate in interior design when she finally decided to study an MFA scene design program at the College of Fine Arts of Theatre; and painter Leeanne Maxey, from Arkansas. Each will receive the 20016 Esther and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Awards together with $12,000 to help jump-start their professional careers.

Established in 1985, the Kahn awards are funded by a $1 million endowment from the late Esther Kahn (SED’55, Hon.’86) and are presented each year to three CFA students in the final semester of their undergraduate or graduate studies. Winners are chosen based on proposals from students detailing how they would use the award to launch their careers, their concern for social issues, and their take on the artist’s role in contemporary society. http://www.bu.edu/today/2016/