Rock drummer-turned-soundtrack composer Stewart Copeland is coming to Dallas this spring to receive the Meadows Award — plus, give some lectures and lead the Meadows Orchestra.
It's not the first time Stewart Copeland has come to Southern Methodist University. In 2012, Copeland came to Dallas — where the Dallas Symphony had premiered his composition "Gamelan D'Drum" with the percussion ensemble D'Drum. During his visit, he taught SMU students the art of scoring movies, TV shows and videogames.
This time, the 71-year-old Copeland joins an illustrious group of national and international artists at "the utmost height of their profession" who've received the Meadows. These include violist Nadia Sirota and Lear deBessonet, creator of The Public Theater’s Public Works program. In its previous incarnation as the Meadows Prize, it was given to such luminaries as film director Peter Brook, musician-composer Wynton Marsalis and Broadway master Stephen Sondheim.
As part of the prize, Copeland will be in an on-campus residency at SMU this spring. This will culminate in his leading the Meadows Symphony Orchestra April 16th in a performance of his full orchestral rearrangement of The Police’s best-known songs, “Police Deranged for Orchestra."
It will be the first time the piece will be performed by a collegiate orchestra. Last August, Copeland released Police Beyond Borders, which featured 10 of the Police's hit song — "King of Pain," "Message in a Bottle," "Roxanne" — in different "world music" orchestrations.
Copeland has created the soundtracks for such films as "Wall Street," "Lorenzo's Oil" and "Sympatico" as well as such TV series as "Babylon 5" and "Desperate Housewives." Over his career with the Police, Copeland shared five Grammy Awards for best rock performance, pop performance and rock instrumental performance. In 2022 and 2023, Copeland won his sixth and seventh Grammys for best new age album and best immersive audio album — both were for Divine Tides, his collaboration with Ricky Kej.
