Music Composition Student Wins Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

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University of Tulsa music composition senior Noam Faingold has won a 2007 Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Fellowship, valued at up to $250,000, that will cover up to five years of graduate school.

As TU’s first Jack Kent Cooke scholarship winner, Faingold will pursue his master’s degree in music composition at New York University. Faingold will graduate from TU in August with a degree in music composition, minors in philosophy and film scoring, and an honors certificate.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation was established in 2000 through the will of businessman Jack Kent Cooke. The Lansdowne, Virginia-based foundation identifies and supports young people of exceptional promise and character who have financial need and have demonstrated excellence in academic endeavors and extracurricular activities.

Faingold credited his music development to the demanding curriculum at TU and his professors’ encouragement for improvisation.

"My professors were really flexible whenever I had an idea for an alternative project that would give me more real-life musical performance experience," Faingold said.

Although he did not learn to read music until his freshman year at TU, Faingold has managed to accomplish a lot in little time. He has received three student research grants, attended young composer workshops in New York and Germany, won the 2007 TU School of Music Bela Rozsa Composition Competition, written music for a local television show, received several classical music commissions and brought together a wide variety of musicians to play his eclectic style of music that draws from rock, jazz, classical and other genres.

Several student research grants from the TU Office of Student Research provided Faingold the opportunities he needed to expand his talent.

One of those TU research grants made it possible for Faingold to attend the 2006 NYU/ASCAP Foundation Film Scoring Workshop in New York City. Faingold was able to write his own film cues under hectic industry conditions. Guest instructors at the workshop included composers Mark Snow (X-Files) and Ira Newborn (Blues Brothers).

His participation in the nationally renowned Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge (TURC) program also inspired him to search for new ways to create and use music. TURC provides opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in original research while working directly with faculty mentors.

"Unlike other programs, I was able to get a lot of personal attention and could experiment with performers, ensembles and music research through TURC," Faingold said.

This summer, Faingold is studying composition with Juilliard professor Samuel Adler at the Freie Universitat Berlin in Germany. He was one of only 15 American students accepted into this highly competitive international program.