Composer Douglas Knehans is the latest recipient of the Wachtmeister Award, a prestigious fellowship awarded by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). This distinguished prize acknowledges the vital role of the arts in our world, the importance of artists who exemplify excellence in their field, and the necessity of time and space for the creative phase of all artistic work.
Awarded every two years, the Wachtmeister Award rotates among writers, visual artists, and composers. This year’s award was open to established composers and sound artists who have made substantial achievements over at least 15 years. The selection process was led by Martin Hundley and Joelle Wallach of the VCCA Fellows Council’s Wachtmeister Committee, with three renowned composers serving as anonymous jurors. The committee highlighted the engaging expressiveness of Knehans’s music, its beautiful melodies and harmonies, and his command of musical syntax as key factors in his selection.
Photo credit: Tina Gutierrez
As the 2025 Wachtmeister Award winner, Knehans will receive 30 days in residence at Mt. San Angelo, home to VCCA’s artist residency program in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, along with a $1,000 honorarium and $750 travel stipend. During his residency, Knehans will have uninterrupted time and space to focus on his creative work, with the opportunity to immerse himself in a community of artists from various disciplines. A VCCA residency provides lodging, a private studio, and three prepared meals a day for up to 22 artists in residence at a time.
The main project Knehans intends to pursue at VCCA is a twenty-minute piano concerto in four movements called Hurricane. This and other recent works of Knehans are inspired by the wondrous beauty of the natural world and the urgent threats it faces. “My work is dedicated as a reminder of what we have and a warning of what we may lose,” says Knehans.
Knehans’s career is marked by numerous accolades, including awards from the American Music Center, National Endowment for the Arts, Australia Council Performing Arts Board, Yale University, MacDowell, Opera Australia, Cannes Film Festival, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, The National Symphony Orchestra, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and Meet the Composer, among many others. His music is available on ERM Media, Crystal Records, Move Records, New World Records, and ABLAZE Records.
Previous composers to receive the Wachtmeister Award include Robert Normandeau (2019) and Anna Weesner (2006). The award has also gone to four visual artists — M. Florine Démosthène (2021), Anne Ferrer (2015), James McGarrell (2011) and Thomas Roma (2015) — and five writers — fiction writer Kelly Luce (2023), nonfiction writer Emily Rapp Black (2017), poet Debra Marquart (2013), playwright Kia Corthron (2008) and fiction writer Ha Jin (2004).
Critical Praise for the Music of Douglas Knehans
“This is music of tremendous imagination. Knehans scores with a masterly hand, his sound paintbrush unerringly hitting the mark.” — FANFARE MAGAZINE
“…the sounds of nature course through the orchestral pieces… with a primitive force and melodic insistence that recall Stravinsky.” — THE NEW YORKER
“…robustly imagistic…immediately appealing…a thing of cosseting beauty…” — LIMELIGHT MAGAZINE
“…a composer of considerable fluency and instrumental imagination.” — GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE
“…spectacular…powerful…transporting the listener miraculously to another world through soaring melodic material over haunting repeated patterns.” — NEW YORK CONCERT REVIEW