College of Music faculty members Panayiotis Kokoras (left) and Sungji Hong (right) earned the coveted John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship.

Hong and Kokoras, who both teach in the Division of Composition Studies, were two of 180 recipients of the prestigious fellowship in 2022. The award honors mid-career individuals in the U.S. and Canada for their “exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”

Hong’s compositions include works for solo instruments, orchestra, chorus, ballet and electroacoustic media with special interest on timbre and pre-determined pitch structures. Her musical language is colorful, with a wealth of imagery and exquisite delicacy.

She previously earned commissions from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Tongyoung International Music Festival, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and National Flute Association, among many others. In 2022, she also earned a Charles Ives Fellow- ship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as an election as an associate by the Royal Academy of Music upon its 200th anniversary.

Kokoras, who serves as director of UNT’s Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia, is an international award-winning composer and computer music innovator. His compositions have been selected by juries in more than 300 international calls for music and have received 84 distinctions and prizes in international composition competitions.

In both instrumental and electroacoustic writing, his music calls upon a “virtuosity of sound,” a hyper-idiomatic writing which emphasizes the precise production of variable sound possibilities and the correct distinction between one timbre and another to convey the musical ideas and structure of the piece.