Meeting with our scholarship winners

 

Over the past six years The Gena Branscombe Project has awarded scholarships to up-and-coming composers, conductors and arts administrators.  One of our missions is to stay in touch with our winners, post their accomplishments on social media and to meet them in person when the occasion arises.  We also try to attend their concerts or at least watch them live streaming!

Recently Co-Founder Dan Ryan and our 2020 Composer scholarship winner, Damali Willingham, crossed paths at a gig they did.  Damali was Assistant Conductor and Dan sang with The Refugee Orchestra Project on their March 1, 2026 concert in Methuen,  MA.   

Several years ago Damali rea
lized Gena Branscombe’s “Festival March/Prelude” from manuscript into a score for wind ensemble.  She conducted the premiere of that score at Berklee College of Music in Boston.  It’s been a pleasure meeting Damali for lunch or coffee and attending concerts she has conducted.  She’s been cover conductor for the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Assistant Conductor for the Lexington Philharmonic, and will conduct the Queer Urban Orchestra in June.  Way to go Damali!

 

To say that The Gena Branscombe Project is thrilled to have our 2025 Arts Administration scholarship winner, Lauren Koszyk, realizing Gena Branscombe’s unfinished opera score, "Bells of Circumstance" into a performable score is an understatement!  Lauren has been hard at work reading Gena’s manuscripts and entering them into Sibelius.  She will have a score ready for performance and publication some time soon!

In early March, Lauren was in New York City to study the

original manuscripts held at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.  Meeting at the library we hovered over the scores and I was able to help Lauren decipher Gena’s words and manuscript writing. 

Not only was Lauren working on this project for her  doctoral degree, she was preparing her doctoral recital which she performed on Sunday, March 22^nd, but she also was studying for her doctoral comprehensive exams.  She passed!

We’ll be seeing Lauren in Picton, Ontario in August for the “From Picton to the World: Bringing Home the Music of Gena Branscombe” where at least two of Lauren’s realizations will be performed.

Our scholarship winners truly honor Miss Branscombe’s legacy of dedication and hard work.  It has been an honor to award these talented musicians The Gena Branscombe scholarships.  

Here are all of our winners thus far.  The 2026 scholarships will be awarded this summer.  

#BringingBackBranscombe