Ramiro Cortes Scholarship

The Ramiro Cortés Memorial Music Scholarship honors the life and achievement of Ramiro Cortés (1933-1984), the first Mexican-American to earn an international reputation as a composer of classical music. The scholarship has been entirely funded by the free-will offerings of audiences at a series of scholarship benefit concerts in Wenatchee and Leavenworth. The founder and Artistic Director of the concert series is Steve Stefanides of Wenatchee. Ramiro Cortés was a gifted pianist and composer who studied with important twentieth century American composers including Henry Cowell, Richard Donovan, Ingolf Dahl, Vittorio Giannini, Roger Sessions and Halsey Stevens. His preparatory period culminated in a Fulbright Fellowship which took him to Rome to study for two years with the Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi. He taught composition at UCLA, USC, and the University of Utah, where he was Chair of Music Theory until his death in 1984. This scholarship supports graduating seniors from Chelan or Douglas County in Washington state who are enrolled as full-time students majoring in music. The scholarship commemorates Cortés' legacy as a pioneering Mexican-American classical music composer and supports the next generation of musicians from North Central Washington.