The Glenn Glasow Graduate Fellowship in Composition is awarded annually to a graduate student who shows outstanding potential as a music composer. Recipients of the fellowship receive financial support for one year of graduate study and are expected to premiere an original composition at the annual Glenn Glasow Memorial Concert in the Spring Semester. This concert, now a longstanding tradition, began during Glasow's lifetime. In 2009, his family established The Glenn Glasow and Yoshiko Kakudo Endowment in Music Composition to ensure that the annual memorial concert continues providing a showcase for works by Cal State East Bay alumni, faculty, and students.
Glasow was a professor of music and Asian studies from 1961 to 1995. Born in Minnesota, he attended Hamline University, studied music in Germany on a Fulbright grant and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Before joining the faculty at Cal State East Bay, Glasow was the music director at radio station KPFA. In addition to teaching, he was also an active composer and an expert in world music, particularly the music of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu
There is no formal application for this fellowship. Recipients are selected on the basis of scores submitted through the program application process and through student accomplishments in their private composition lessons.