Pogorzelski-Yankee Competition Winner Premieres March 17
"Imago," the 2025 Pogorzelski-Yankee Annual Competition winner composed by Christopher Enloe, will be premiered March 17 by organist Aaron Tan on the Pogorzelski-Yankee Organ at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Click here to watch an interview with Enloe and learn more about the development of the piece. Tan's recital will also be livestreamed.
COMPOSER'S NOTES
One recent theologian posited that the most critical question of the 21st century is anthropological: “What does it mean to be human?” The rise of AI image, text, and audio generators has pressed this question with particular force on the contemporary artist. The artist must address the question, “What makes human creativity valuable?”
Imago is a musical and theological reflection on these questions. In Christian theology, humanity’s value stems from being made “Imago Dei” – in the image of God. Each movement of Imago is inspired by facets of humanity that are unique in Christian teaching: freedom (“Volitio" - Posse Peccare) – a tone poem built around Genesis 1 -3), moral agency (“Lapsus” – referring to humanity’s Fall from the state of innocence), and spiritual life (“Resurgo”).
I constructed Imago from two basic materials. The first is the hymn-tune St. Anne, chosen for both its association with hymnody (“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”) and as a nod to Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in Eb Major (BWV 552). The second of these materials is a theme produced via an AI music generator (Anticipation) after being “inspired” by St. Anne.
Rather than being a polemic against AI, I think of Imago as a celebration of what makes art valuable. The answer, at least in part, is that it comes from actual, flesh-and-blood people—people made in the image of God who experience the world with all its subjective agonies, pleasures, and absurdities. Machines imitate and reorganize; people experience and empathize. I find the latter far more profound. – Christopher Enloe, August 2024
BIOGRAPHY
Christopher Enloe (b. 1997) is a prolific composer of award-winning works, celebrated for their "highly expressive qualities" and "skillful use of expressionism and sonority" (O/Modernt Award Press Release). He is pursuing a DMA in Composition and MM in Music Theory Pedagogy at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where he studies under Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer Kevin Puts.
Enloe's works have been performed in concerts and festivals across the United States and Europe. His collaborators include the Polish Chamber Choir, the O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, Nadia Sirota, Ah Young Hong, and Avenue Azure (Ensemble Klang). In the summer of 2023, he served as the Baltimore Symphony's advising composer and discussion panelist for their "AI in A Minor" concert. Recent awards for his compositions include a BMI Composer Award (2023), the O/Modernt Composition Award (2023), Musica Sacra Nova (Second Prize, 2023), and the John Ness Beck Foundation Award (2019). He has participated in masterclasses and workshops with Oscar Bettison, Felipe Lara, Dan Forrest, Howard Helvey, Libby Larsen, Steven Sametz, and Samuel Adler.
In addition to his concert music, Enloe works remotely as assistant to awardwinning film composer Grant Fonda. He has provided additional music, arranging, orchestration, and music editing for clients including Paramount+, FOX Sports, Amazon, and Buzzfeed. He holds an MM in Composition from Peabody Conservatory, studying under Michael Hersch, and a BM in Composition from The Master's University. He currently resides in Greenville, S.C., where he is assistant professor of theory and composition at Bob Jones University.