
Letter from the President and CEO
PROJECTS/MEDIA
Composing Advocacy: Social Voices
A 100-Foot Stringed Instrument In Resonance
Muhal Richard Abrams: Think All, Focus One
Ken Ueno: Throat-Singing, Orchestra, and a New Work
“No Singers Were Harmed in The Creation of This Opera” – Anatomy Theater
Missy Mazzoli: Communication, Intimacy, and Vulnerability
A Contemporary Nod To The Past: Gerald Clayton’s Piedmont Blues
Music Alive
A Community Creates An Anthem
An Exploration of Boundaries: Borders
NewMusicBox Showcase: Musical Creativity & Mental Health and Music & Money
Celebrating A Rich Tradition: The Black Composer Project
Gamelan, Strings, and Transcendent Grandeur
Building Support for the New Music Community
Timber, Maps, and DIY Instruments
Community Through Sound: Communal Experimentalism
Hannibal’s One Land, One River, One People For Hope and Healing
Advocacy
Imagining A Community of Difference: Bang on a Can’s First Marathon Concert
Remembering John Duffy
Project Grants
Organizers
COLLABORATORS
New Music Impact Fund
Panelists
NewMusicBox Articles
Authors
Supporters
FY16 UNAUDITED FINANCIALS
Board of Directors, Councils, and Staff
Photo Credits
Want More New Music?
End of TOC
New music is relevant music. Living creative musicians reflect on who we are, address questions we all have, challenge our preconceptions, enlighten and elevate us. While it is sometimes viewed as more abstract than other art forms, music has the ability to communicate through a language that can be commonly understood. It can also be a powerful interdisciplinary partner for work involving film, theater, dance, and more.
So while New Music USA is focused on building the new music community, this community doesn’t exist in isolation. It is an active part of our larger society and necessarily engages with a wide spectrum of contemporary issues and realities. Each artist finds her or his own pathway for this engagement. In reviewing the full collection of work emerging from New Music USA’s programming in 2015/16, I was struck by the range of those pathways and the trails they weave across the United States.
As you look through these pages you will see projects examining cultural heritage and experience such as Hannibal Lokumbe’s One Land, One River, One People, and Gerald Clayton’s Piedmont Blues. There is interdisciplinary work exploring the human relationship to boundaries in our world, such as LEIMAY’s multimedia Borders. Close examinations of issues affecting artists and others in our society are evident, as observed through week-long series on NewMusicBox devoted to topics such as “Mental Health and Musical Creativity.” Many adventures in the creation of new work are represented here, as with Ken Ueno’s new work in residency with the Alia Musica ensemble and Brian Baumbusch’s creations for the JACK string quartet in collaboration with the Lightbulb Ensemble gamelan. As always, the many profiles featured on NewMusicBox in the past year, represented here by those on Muhal Richard Abrams and Missy Mazzoli, included many insights on the connections between artist and community and society.
New Music USA is proud to bring forward the voices of artists in our community. I hope you will explore these voices further by visiting our website newmusicusa.org, and then further engage with the full range of new music that is present in our world every day. There’s such a diverse and exciting collection of music waiting to be discovered!
Ed Harsh
President and CEO
“Composer Darrel Grant has said, ‘I believe that we who create art possess an extraordinary power to communicate, inspire, provoke, inform, and to move others to transform society.’ Across communities, new music is actively challenging us to pay attention to the issues and the voices in our society.”
In an essay published on NewMusicBox this past year, Christina Rusnak reflects on how composers and performers are “looking at the diverse landscapes in which we live, with their complex human histories and changing values, as the grounds to examine the intersection of place and people—past and present.”
There are countless new music works composed today specifically geared towards political activism, social criticism, and raising awareness. Ethan Ganse Morse’s opera The Canticle of the Black Madonna responds to 9/11 and addresses PTSD; cellist Kari Juusela composed PBBP in response to the British Petroleum oil spill on the Gulf coast in 2010; Brian Harnetty critiqued the human and environmental impacts of the extraction industries of southeastern Ohio through music as well as his writings for NewMusicBox; and Joan Szymko worked for months with families and patients with Alzheimer’s to try and understand their experiences and have their voices heard through her choral work Shadow and Light.
Music has the power to heal. Music also has the power to advocate for the changes needed in our society by engaging audiences with them on deeper, more emotional levels and from a wide variety of different perspectives.
“New music can advocate for the changes needed in our society by connecting us to issues larger than ourselves. … By creating works that look to the diverse landscapes in which we live as a foundation, the intersection of place and people expands our musical palette. The resulting pieces may become some of the most compelling works of our time.”
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“The entire building becomes an instrument…” —The Austin Chronicle
Imagine what instruments with names such as the “Long String Instrument,” the “Owl,” “Skiffs,” or the “Bow Box” might sound like. Now imagine a full piece of music using these instruments, consuming the room and turning the entirety of Austin’s Saengerrunde Hall into one massive resonating body. The Austin Chronicle describes the experience as being “like a chorus of Buddhist monks, chanting at the bottom of a vast cavern. Like a chorus of triple-lunged, robotic Buddhist monks, their voices humming and thrumming to fill acoustic space with shifting drones that might emanate from their creator’s soul.”
Ellen Fullman first debuted her 100-foot “Long String Instrument” 12 years ago in one of the few available spaces that could accommodate the massive instrument’s installation—a former candy factory. Since then, she has been collaborating with composer Travis Weller on projects that have been performed at the University of Texas as part of the Music in Architecture/Architecture in Music Symposium, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. With the help of New Music USA’s project grant support, the collaborators were able to present their newest piece Coffee County Tennessee, a concert-length composition that explores the duo’s collection of both self-built and traditional instruments (violin and viola) to create an enormous, captivating, and unforgettable sound world.
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Muhal Richard Abrams, a founding member of the AACM, has worked with a long list of heralded artists—Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Art Farmer, and Anthony Braxton—and so many more. Yet simultaneously, the 85-year-old Abrams has also been active as a composer of works for string quartet, orchestra, and solo piano, having had premieres by such ensembles as the Kronos Quartet, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.
His extensive and prolific career aside, Abrams’s wisdom and pedagogy reaches beyond just being a performer and composer. Abrams met with Frank J. Oteri this past January to discuss his take on genre, musical boundaries, old verses new, and his approach to music as “just sound.”
“The word jazz can be confusing. … But if we say music, it could be anywhere. It’s just music. The next question, what type of music? Okay. No type of music. Just sound. You know, because that’s what it is. Sound. Before it’s even organized into any kind of continuum that we would call music, it’s just sound. … A style name limits the scope or the focus and that turns out to be unfair to quite a number of people.”
To Abrams, categorizations, labels, and definitions are constructs that can serve to limit us. Old music can be reinvented as something new, and new music can be reminiscent of the past; a composition could be an improvisation and an improvisation a composition. This non-dualistic and boundary-less approach clearly reflects itself in his own music and diverse accomplishments as an artist and has a lot to offer today’s world of genre-bending and border-breaking new music.
“In reference to people saying this is old or this is new, if it’s old for you, then it’s old for you. If it’s new for you, it’s new for you. But those are just terms that are useful to describe the particular mood that that person or those people are feeling. None of it’s real because the situation that is characterized as old often times is revisited and found to be useful for some future purpose. And something new can be visited and found that is reminiscent of something that’s old.”
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During the 2015-2016 season, composer Ken Ueno held a series of lectures and workshops, created a new work for chamber ensemble, and had the city premiere of his concerto for overtone singer and orchestra in Pittsburgh—all thanks to an exciting and action-packed year-long residency with the Alia Musica ensemble that New Music USA was proud to support.
Ueno’s commissioned chamber piece with oboe and snare drum, titled Sawdust on Ararat, was premiered by the Alia Musica ensemble in May 2016. The residency also resulted in Ueno’s orchestral work On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of the Most Specific Hypothesis, which premiered in November 2015. The composer describes this work as a representation of his “first attempt to reconcile the multiplicity of being a ‘classical’ composer and ‘experimental’ improviser.” The piece explores the extended vocal techniques he utilizes as an improviser such as throat singing, overtone singing, singing multi-band multiphonics, circular breathing, and sub-tones.
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“The murderess confesses her crimes. She is hanged and publicly dissected at a spiritual carnival. Can morality be found in one’s body?”
In 18th-century England, criminals were publicly dissected in front of an audience eager to find out exactly where evil resided in the body. This past June in LA, such a morbid spectacle took place again, but with one key difference—the criminal’s bloody, naked corpse sang arias throughout the duration of her own autopsy.
Composer David Lang and librettist/designer Mark Dion’s experimental multi-media opera anatomy theater is provocative, fascinating, and gory to say the least. Produced by Beth Morrison Projects, performed by the LA Opera, and supported by New Music USA, the work possesses a surreal grandeur—intermeshing facets of stunning visual art, new music, theater, opera, film, and projections to explore societal fear, identity, and conception of self. The protagonist, the battered woman Sarah Osborne, confessed to the murder of her husband and two kids, and attributed her crimes to the tortured life she had lead in perpetual suffering.
“Sarah sings of her heart, the heart that loved her children, a good heart that was perverted by society. … It’s not who we are, she makes us understand, but what we do to each other that creates monsters.” —Los Angeles Times
“No singers were harmed in the creation of this opera,” Lang assured us.
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A candid and wide-ranging conversation between NewMusicBox senior editor Frank J. Oteri and Missy Mazzoli in her Greenpoint, Brooklyn apartment brought forward reflections on how she uses lyricism and melody to explore human vulnerability and intimacy, discussion of her range of inspirations, and an examination of her multifaceted composition career.
“My goal is to try to draw the listener in with something that is familiar, even just a tiny bit, whether it’s a little repeated melodic fragment or the sound of the harmonica, which is a sound that everybody knows. Most people have picked up a harmonica and have blown into it. We know that sound. So I try to draw people in with something that they can latch onto, but then twist it and present it in a different way, present the melody with a strange chord underneath. Or have the harmonicas be this insistent repeating drone that becomes unsettling.”
With an incredibly diverse array of influences and a unique genre-bending approach, Mazzoli’s work to date has ranged from touring with classical/indie-rock band Victoire to composing orchestral, operatic, and solo piano works. She shed light on the levels of intimacy and different kinds of relationships she has to her music when performing within her own group, writing for an ensemble, or working on an orchestra commission.
“[I am] finding different answers to the question of how to bring an intimate, vulnerable, human experience to a situation like working with an orchestra, which is a little bit disconcerting and I feel kind of disconnected as a composer for a couple different reasons. … If my only outlet was to make these marks on a page and then deliver it to people who I would never meet, I would be really depressed. I created this band, and I perform, and I write for my friends, and I try to be intimately involved with people who are in the process of performing my music to counteract that, to maintain some sense of control and involvement on every level.”
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Jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader Gerald Clayton took us on a journey through the tobacco factories, farms, and warehouses of Durham, North Carolina, to explore the historic southern landscapes that echo the Piedmont Blues. During his week-long Duke Performances residency, Clayton examined this musical tradition’s aesthetics which are characterized by ragtime rhythms, fingerpicking guitar patterns, and powerful yet understated singing—a style that embodies the history of African-American oppression under Jim Crow laws and the aggressive racism and discrimination that was prevalent in the 1920s. The project sought to powerfully revive and reimagine this musical tradition’s rich history, serving as an homage to the African-American struggle.
Drawing from the roots established originally by Blind Boy Fuller, Etta Baker, and Elizabeth Cohen, Clayton’s project brought the tradition back to life with help from collaborators Lizz Wright, Tivon Pennicot, Dayna Stephens, Becca Stevens, and others. By extracting harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic ideas from the original tunes, the nine-piece ensemble produced “a series of songs that knowingly nod to the past, while being fundamentally contemporary.”
New Music USA’s project grant helped support the presentation of the work, which integrated projected films, new and archival photography, folklore, and music, together producing a powerful testimony to the African-American experience.
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Music Alive is an orchestral residency program administered in association with the League of American Orchestras that is designed to empower composers and positively change the culture of orchestras and their communities.
Over the past year, we were able to witness Music Alive’s ability to accomplish this through our one-week New Partnership residencies. We saw, for example, how a composer can help augment an orchestra’s relationship with their community. In his residency with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Rick Robinson encouraged the orchestra to give chamber performances in unconventional spaces such as bars, restaurants, and senior centers—something that he does with his own CutTime® ensemble. Through this experiment, the orchestra was able to serve larger segments of their community and also show that new music is truly for everyone. We also saw that many orchestras went above and beyond this round to secure additional funding to add either extra time or more content to their residency and that the relationships brokered by Music Alive often end up being long lasting and fruitful for the composer. For example, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra found additional funding to commission a piece from their Music Alive residency composer Clarice Assad. On top of that, the relationship did not end with the end of the residency, as Assad will be premiering a new concerto with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and Akron Symphony in 2017.
Residency pairings can also push orchestras to explore types of music they might not have otherwise. Sumi Tonooka is a jazz composer who applied to Music Alive in order to be able to work closely with an orchestra. The South Dakota Symphony was so excited about the possibilities of this unconventional residency that they used additional funds to commission a piece from Tonooka, and that opportunity has opened doors in the orchestra world for her. Derrick Spiva is a composer who is interested in “exploring connections between musical cultures” and brought this interest to his residency with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In addition to presenting his work Prisms, Cycles, Leaps which has West African and Balkan influences, Spiva spoke to students, gave West African music workshops for young musicians, and participated in pre-concert talks with the Zadonu African Music and Dance Company to help audiences understand the rhythmic complexities of his music. Spiva described his residency as being “humbling and inspiring. It has made me believe even more strongly in the power of music to bring people from different cultural backgrounds together through a shared, communal, experience.”
In the program cycle completed with the 2015/16 season, Music Alive offered two types of residencies. The first of these, Principal Residencies, were three years long and included deep engagement from the composer and the orchestra. These residencies featured premiers of new work, community engagement activities, and performances of other work by the composer. This past round, Music Alive awarded Principal Residencies to the Albany Symphony and the Sleeping Giant Collective (Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Jacob Cooper, Christopher Cerrone, Robert Honstein, and Ted Hearne); the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance and Stella Sung; the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Gabriela Lena Frank; the Pacific Symphony and Narong Prangcharoen; and the Seattle Symphony and Trimpin.
The New Partnership pairings that were supported by this past round of Music Alive are: Claire Assad and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Douglas J. Cuomo and the Grant Park Music Festival, Annie Gosfield and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Takuma Itoh and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Jingjing Luo and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Missy Mazzoli and the Boulder Symphonic Orchestra, Rick Robinson and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, Carl Schimmel and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Laura Schwendinger and the Richmond Symphony, Derek Spiva and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Sumi Tonooka and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, and Dan Visconti and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
While this past year marked the end of a multi-year round of Music Alive, New Music USA was recently awarded a $1.5 million dollar grant from the Mellon Foundation that will support a reinvented version of Music Alive that beginning immediately with the 2016/17 season. This new cycle prioritizes collaborative work and immersive experiences for composers, orchestra musicians, artistic leadership, and community members. Through these changes to Music Alive, we hope to demonstrate—through active partnership with the participating residency pairings and our colleagues at the League—the power and value of living creative artists working at the center of American orchestras.
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Gifted New Jersey youth, arts institutions, and musicians have been coming together throughout 2016 with one common goal: creating a city anthem that will represent the urban experience, cultural heritage, and high hopes for the future of Newark—all just in time to celebrate the city’s 350th anniversary later in 2016.
Educator, musician, and audio engineer Spencer Frohwirth, the co-founder of the organization Collaborate Audio Lab, partnered with institutions and educators who work with a diverse population of local youth in Newark. Holding songwriting workshops and working closely with mentors and recording engineers, Newark In Tune fostered an enriching musical experience that inspires learning through teamwork, self-expression, and positive communication in a safe, fun, and professional environment. Frohwirth describes the goal for the project to be “the creation of a city-wide anthem that will represent our urban experience, cultural heritage, and combined hopes for the future of this wonderful city.”
Through a project grant, New Music USA was able to support a unique commissioning process that incorporated education and outreach into a civic project, culminating in a number of workshops, events, and performances throughout Newark, and a professionally produced song that will be made available to the public online.
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“Seven bodies stand in near darkness. A stripe of light falls across them, then another and another until the human shapes are stratified. … [S]olid flesh appear[s] to melt.” —The New York Times
The collision of sound, dance, light, and installations that make up the multi-disciplinary work, Borders achieves something otherworldly. Seven dancers’ movements are dissected and stunningly enhanced with the use of a 12-channel projection of textural light. Choreographed by the Brooklyn-based artistic duo LEIMAY, the work seeks answers to contemporary urban social questions: As individuals within a global city constantly negotiating or carrying borderlines with us, how does this shape the ways in which we engage the world? When do we transgress our own boundaries? When do we become borders ourselves?
For Borders, LEIMAY teamed up with composer Joe Diebes, a fellow Brooklynite whose work explores the convergence of electronic music, sound art, visual art, and live performance. The powerful and haunting landscape the piece evokes investigates human physicality by exploring the presence of its performers illuminated by lighting effects in meditative stillness and primitive disjointed movement, while enveloping its spectators in the sounds of live and digitally manipulated voices layered atop piano and electronics. In their project grant application the LEIMAY team noted, “With Borders, we will delve into what these aspects of borders mean in order to raise questions of how our choices and strategies for making connections, affecting, and being affected impact the world around us.”
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Over the past few years, NewMusicBox has explored issues of serious concern to the field through special theme weeks. This has allowed multiple writers to share their perspectives and provided a platform for wider community dialog. NewMusicBox held two theme weeks in the past year that focused on important aspects of an artist’s life: dealing with money and mental health challenges.
Following the New Music Gathering in Baltimore last winter, our team was eager to continue and expand on conversations that emerged there about the economic dimensions of being an artist.
“We viscerally understand that one of the salient experiences of being an artist in the United States is the tension between the value we feel in our minds, our hearts, our bones, and the valuation the culture tends to reflect back, negatively, in lack of money. We should all talk about this a lot. Sharing stories is one of the most empowering human acts.” –Ed Harsh
We tried to cover a lot of issues and avoid what could easily become a list of complaints about the difficulties of an artist’s life. We wanted to provide insight and stimulate more ideas. Topics ranged from advice on crowd-sourcing and audience-based commissioning, to strategies for holding “regular jobs” to sustain and work in tandem with artistic practice, to reflections on funding structures and the economic climate for new music in general.
We asked Bonnie Jones to share some of the thoughts she had presented at the New Music Gathering:
“My own path for making a living while making art was something that during the panel I referred to as the Bonnie Jones Grant. This ‘grant’ was all the various web-related freelance and fulltime jobs I’ve held during my 17 years in Baltimore, which directly funded my volunteer non-profit, curatorial work, and art practice. In other words, I had a lot of regular jobs, but I thought of them as very much part of my creative practice because they sustained that practice.… I realized early on that the music and writing I was drawn to might never be able to generate enough income to support my FOOD/SHELTER needs. So I got a job, a job job as artists sometimes call it, or job jobs in my case.”
Mental Health & Musical Creativity
After a blog post by composer Nico Muhly as well as a New York Times article by Keeril Makan about mental health issues and musical creativity, there were many expansive conversations and expressions of solidarity shared within the new music community. We noticed that this was a recurring topic that needed to be further addressed and paid attention to. Our theme week on this topic included a series of interviews and essays during which composers and musicians shared their personal experiences, serving to encourage open dialogue about how mental health issues are dealt with in relation to creative work. The week consisted of contributions by Marcos Balter, Jenny Olivia Johnson, Keeril Makan, Daniel Felsenfeld, and Carolyn O’Brien.
“Everybody thinks they understand depression because they’ve been through a breakup, or they’ve lost someone. But depression is a very specific thing. It’s good that we’re talking about it. … [S]o many composers, or artists, or creative artists generally, have experienced this.” —Daniel Felsenfeld
“Composing, for me, is almost like keeping a diary. I do feel more creative when I am happier. But, funny enough, my works that seem to resonate the most with other people tend to be the ones I’ve created during convoluted personal times. I try not to capitalize on it, not to romanticize depression or anxiety. … But, I’m human, and I have low points, and I do produce during these low points. So, these darker works do happen. I don’t seek them out, but they do happen.” —Marcos Balter
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“The idea is to take the community on an adventure through the creative landscape of contemporary African-American concert music.”
Ranging from neoclassical music to free improvisation, concerto to collaborative, Afrocentric to abstract, The Black Composer Project exhibited the richness of this tradition through an eclectic and exciting festival showcasing three generations-worth of brilliant music by African-American composers and musicians. The program fearlessly delved into and displayed new art music that is “composed and improvised, acoustic and electronic, academic and intuitive,” exploring a wide array of genres and aesthetics through a series of concerts, salons, panels, and discussions throughout Chicago, Illinois.
The Fulcrum Point New Music Project is dedicated to the pioneering and creation of new music that straddles what might be considered new art music and traditional grass-roots music. With support from New Music USA’s project grants, they commissioned composer Jeffery Mumford to write a concerto for piano and ensemble which was premiered at the project’s concluding concert, Proclamation!, at the Promontory. The piece, titled Becoming…, is described as “a virtuosic work for solo piano and ensemble that explores the abstract, sonic expression of the composer’s childhood memories of light, clouds, and atmosphere.” The sold out concert highlighted Fulcrum Point’s approach to presenting a widely varied range of works. This program also included the work of composers Jessie Montgomery and Kahil el’Zabar.
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Cosmic revolution; the turning of the universe; aesthetics of molecular crystallizations; Hindu cosmology; phase-shifting patterns and asymmetrical rhythms—these are just some of the phrases used to describe the subject matter of the ethereal and awe-inspiring work for neo-gamelan orchestra and string quartet that The Washington Post describes to be “as cutting edge as cutting edge gets.”
Santa Cruz-based composer Brian Baumbusch worked with an undoubtedly powerful pair: the innovative avant-garde string quartet JACK and the 12-member new gamelan Lightbulb Ensemble (LBE) whom the San Francisco Classical Voice hails for their “refreshingly innovative performances [that] challenge conventional notions of how gamelan music should sound.” With New Music USA’s support, the collaboration between the composer and these two boundary-pushing ensembles made possible the birth of Hydrogen(2)Oxygen, a 30-minute, three-movement work that combines contemporary music, newly created instruments, and American gamelan that premiered at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
“The music takes on a sense of immense and transcendent grandeur. The JACK players turned in a superb performance of a piece that, so simple on the surface, seems to float over infinite depths. … Bewildering at first, even overpowering, it turned maddeningly beautiful and—to these ears, at least—magnificent, and as intoxicating as a drug.” —The Washington Post
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This Year in Review provides some examples of the work we’ve supported over the past twelve months. What you don’t see here, however, is the sheer volume of amazing music being created that we simply don’t have the resources to support. We know that as advocates it’s our role to communicate widely about the breadth, depth, and quality of the work that’s being done across the U.S., to find more support and to expand the resources we distribute to the field, and also to build and even broker relationships between artists and supporters that allow for more funding and support for new music artists, even independently of our programs.
So, back in 2015 we started building New Music Connect: A Network for Friends of New Music, and in 2015-16 we launched a small prototype, with a steering committee of five individuals who are deeply committed to supporting new music all across the U.S. These individuals have provided major financial support but even more importantly, they have helped us design a program that is now ready to launch and expand.
New Music Connect brings together new music patron enthusiasts to learn, exchange ideas, co-mentor, experience, and help build the world of new music in the United States. In addition to creating relationships between donors, a major goal of the network is to link donors with artists, both through additional funds members provide through project grants, but also through other activities that introduce members and artists to each other. Connect has the potential to become a powerful network to help artists do their work as well as address larger issues in our field.
Members of New Music Connect also have the opportunity to view projects that have gone through our panel process and individually support projects they are interested in. Even in the nascent stage of this program, this has already led to an additional $60,000 being distributed to musicians through project grants that would not have been possible otherwise.
In addition to New Music Connect, in 2015-16 we launched a new program, The NYC New Music Impact Fund, which was funded by a $495,000 grant from The Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund. (New Music USA is the first music organization to receive a grant from the Rosin Fund.) We built this program to address the needs of a large and important sector of our field: small, artist-led ensembles and venues. Drawing on experiences from New Music USA’s history of support for the sector and on insights gained through multiple meetings we had in the previous year with those active in it, we designed the program to combine support for general operations and residency activity with creative collaborative marketing work on behalf of the sector as a whole.
Though the Impact Fund is initially focused on organizations in New York City, our dream is eventually to extend it to other areas and ideally across the entire country. The first cohort of participants was awarded in June 2016. You can sign up to receive updates about the Impact Fund here.
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The Oh My Ears (OME) Marathon Concert sprung out of a collective’s mission: community connection through musical engagement; breaking down barriers between audiences, performers, and composers; and fostering opportunities for musicians and teaching artists in the Phoenix metro area of Arizona.
To put this mission into action, New Music USA’s award helped OME present their fourth annual ten-hour marathon of innovative and daring new music by living composers and sound artists, with facilitated activities for audience engagement and interactive projects. The project organizers explained, “Each year, the concert reinforces the belief that the Phoenix metro new music scene is vital and home to supremely talented musical artists.”
This year’s festival featured the Southwest premieres of Michael Gordon’s Timber and Mark Applebaum’s Aphasia, followed by activities like the Epic Maker Instrument Challenge, where participants are invited to design their own instruments with DIY materials, and Musical Maps, which encourages the audience to make visual expressions of their listening experiences with paper and provided art supplies.
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In the late 1960s and early 1970s amidst the growing American experimental music scene, another underground movement was simultaneously emerging called New Communalism. Its activity often went undocumented, as much of it took place in the privacy of intimate artist circles and communes. The experimental artists and researchers in this group were interested in exploring deeper levels of consciousness and pushing the boundaries of music, science, and art. In her article published on NewMusicBox, Kerry O’Brien provided a deep look into the movement via an exploration of the group Pulsa and documentation of the experiments and performances they held at their loft space and commune, Harmony Ranch, in rural Connecticut. There they hosted such legends as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and many others.
“In working with wave energies, part of Pulsa’s work dealt with often invisible or inaudible materials like heat, sound, and light. For instance, in early 1970, Pulsa held an installation in New York City at the MoMA’s Outdoor Sculpture garden. … [The work] aimed to gather ‘environmental information,’ including sound, light movement, and heat using microphones, infrared sensors, and photocells. They then fed that information back into the garden using strobe lights, infrared heaters, and loudspeakers.”
Pulsa’s intent was to develop technology for controlling perceptible wave energies and to create artworks based on and in dialogue with their research. Their ideas were concerned with the theme of interconnectivity and community—a sentiment that the group not only worked with in their art, but ardently practiced as a lifestyle
“Pulsa created art and music that not only made group collaborations audible and palpable, but they also reminded their audiences and participants—through light and sound—that actions have effects. … Pulsa’s work attested to the myriad ways that human beings are entangled—with each other and with environments—and you can hear this involvement; you can hear community through sound.”
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The rich and multi-faceted mind of Hannibal Lokumbe has powerfully expressed the African-American experience through music, community activism, and poetry for over four decades. He identifies his new piece, One Land, One River, One People, with a term he coined himself, “spiritorio.” This points to the nature of the work’s libretto and choir elements, the influences from blues, jazz, and spirituals, and its intent on speaking to the universality of human struggle, injustice, and—ultimately—spirituality.
Following the premiere of the piece at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in August, New Music USA’s grant support allowed Hannibal to conduct a number of community outreach activities to “inspire others through the composer’s message of hope and healing through music.” The community activities around the Capital Region of New York engaged diverse groups that ranged from prison inmates to African-American congregations, and were designed to “address the societal and cultural concepts of [Hannibal’s] work, as well as the transformative power of art.”
“All the beings of the world will one day come to see the truth of their nature. And the lies of ignorance, fear, and hatred will be gone from them and all that they do. Their minds will recall the cosmic womb from which it came and death will be known for the gift that it is. And grace will at last become their wealth and peace will become the ruler of the land. And this peace will hold them like a child holds a bowl full of all that it needs to grow in mind, flesh, and spirit. Then nations will fly the flag of One Land, and the pain of being, will be no more.” —Hannibal Lokumbe
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New Music USA serves as advocates—and not just in the traditional sense of the word. We view our grantmaking and online content as advocacy for the new music field, as well as all of our work to build a community that includes all participants—creators, appreciators, and supporters—and then connects them to each other.
We also engage in activities that are very specifically focused on advocating for American composers and their work. For example, New Music USA is a governing member of the International Association of Music Information Centers (IAMIC). President and CEO Ed Harsh serves as vice-president and Composer Advocate Frank J. Oteri serves as the chair of the Communications Group. Ed attended two meetings of IAMIC in Europe this past year, working to build international networks for the advancement of new American music.
New Music USA also represents the United States in the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), where Frank was elected to the Executive Committee this year. Frank traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September for ISCM’s 2015 World Music Days, and Tongyeong, South Korea, for ISCM’s 2016 World Music Days. Frank also helped secure funding for Missy Mazzoli, whose work was nominated by New Music USA and then chosen to be performed at the 2016 World Music Days, to attend the festival.
Nationally, New Music USA is one of 13 national members of the Performing Arts Alliance (PAA), an organization for performing arts advocates. Ed also attended quarterly meetings of New York Grantmakers in the Arts and the national conference of Grantmakers in the Arts in LA in October.
Frank gave a presentation to composers participating in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Edward T. Cone Composition Institute in July. He also attended the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Composer Institute in November and moderated a roundtable panel of composers and orchestra administrators. Frank attended the Chamber Music America Annual Conference (serving as a mentor for a group of first-time attendees), served on the faculty of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, and moderated two panels as a part of the American Composers Orchestra’s Underwood and Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute Readings and Workshop: “The Real Path to Programming” and “Publicity and Promotion.” Scott Winship, our director of grantmaking programs, gave a presentation called “Support Structures for Composers” at this gathering, as well. Scott also participated on a Grant Resources for Jazz panel at the 2016 Jazz Education Network in Louisville, Kentucky.
New Music USA’s grantmaking staff attended and led an interactive session at this year’s League of American Orchestras’ conference titled “Leveraging Creative Connections.” Additionally, Ed and three other staff members attended the second New Music Gathering, which took place in Baltimore in January. Director of Platform Kevin Clark gave a presentation on economics and long-term planning for artists.
An article published on NewMusicBox by musicologist Will Robin took a retrospective look at Bang on a Can’s history, legacy, and the community it built for American contemporary music.
About 30 years ago at the very first Bang on a Can marathon, Milton Babbitt’s Vision and Prayer was scheduled next to Steve Reich’s Four Organs. Before introducing his piece Babbitt joked, “Sorry I got here late, but I got lost—I’ve never been this far downtown before.”
Upon first arriving to New York, Bang on a Can founders—David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe—noticed a stark contrast of musical communities and aesthetics: “Uptown” and “Downtown”. The philosophies or schools of thought were vastly different, and to the three young composers, this very contrast was the breeding ground for envisioning a new reality for American music.
“Wolfe titled her dissertation ‘Embracing the Clash,’ and that early ‘clash’ became an all-encompassing metaphor for Bang on a Can, extending out into its programming of non-Western music, rock, and free improvisation…. The Reich/Babbitt juxtaposition, though, wasn’t only about clashing. It was about resolution: imagining a new kind of new music community, one that would bring together two disparate scenes.”
The three composers’ initial vision of a musical community defined by a boundary-breaking, genre-bending, and “embracing the clash” postmodern mentality gave birth to the present day Bang on a Can—a now multifaceted umbrella organization that sponsors marathon concerts, a touring ensemble, record label, marching band, institute, and commissioning fund. Their dream to reimagine possibilities and create a sense of community within the plurality of differences that comprise the American music scene became a reality.
“Stepping past ideologies, placing oneself not only not within an uptown or downtown camp, but also beyond any squabbles between them, became a core mythos of Bang on a Can… [their] ideology is that of, as its website declares, ‘building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders.’”
LINKS:
American composer and beloved new music advocate John Duffy, who founded Meet The Composer in 1974, died on December 22, 2015, after a long illness. He was 89.
In 2011, Meet The Composer and the American Music Center merged to form New Music USA. On NewMusicBox, Ed Harsh, current president and CEO, reflected on John Duffy’s life and profound impact on the field.
“With John Duffy, everything was possible. He radiated an optimism as forthright and clear as it was free of guile and self-importance. Though the limits of observable reality might be challenged, audacity never distracted from core purpose. His optimism happily went about its business. It lived solidly on terra firma. It got things done.”
Ed discussed how Duffy often saw the world in a way that was far ahead of his time:
“[His] omnivorous openness was paired with a healthy disregard for conventional hierarchies. He didn’t recognize them as valid, so he ignored them. For John, the idea that a “classical” symphonic work was, by nature, automatically worthy of higher status than the work of, say, Ornette Coleman or Burt Bacharach—to use two of his favorite examples—was simply bunk. He was quick to fight the ingrained privilege and prejudice that often hide behind those hierarchies. The energy and self-assuredness he brought to such spirited struggles embodied for me a muscular, practical, American blue-collar view of the value inherent in solidly workmanlike effort, no matter its form.”
“The exploding variety of creativity we’re blessed with in 2015, which blows through genre categories like so much thin air, may obscure for us now the uncommon character of his views. It’s worth pausing for a moment to make sure that we don’t take John’s openness for granted. Because we shouldn’t.”
Further, the combination of his ahead-of-the-times view with his optimism led Duffy to found an organization that was radical in its day and to continue to fight when others thought what he was trying to do was impossible or foolish.
“John embodied faith, broadly defined; faith in himself and in his fellow artists. This is the fuel that powered his will. And what a will it was, able to conjure abstract vision into very real being. For years in the late 1970s and early 1980s he enthusiastically regaled anyone who would listen with his idea for putting composers in residence with orchestras around the country. We can only imagine how many dozens (hundreds?) of indulgent smiles or blank stares he had to suffer. What an improbable idea it was for a little nonprofit with a tiny budget…. By 1992—ten years, several million dollars, and one transformed orchestral new music world later—it wasn’t improbable anymore. It was obvious.”
“That was a big victory, but it wasn’t the only one. There was also the MTC commissioning program, the composer-choreographer program, the New Residencies program. So many new realities conjured, to the benefit of so many. Yes, that’s the thing: to the benefit of so many.”
LINKS:
12th Annual Carlsbad Music Festival
Carlsbad, CA
2016 LCCMF Young Composer Seminar Commission
Burlington, VT
A Dance for Life: Stories of Surviving – a New Song-Cycle Ballet
Lambertville, NJ
a veil of liquid diamonds
Boston, MA
Adams @ 70: Celebrating Music of our Time
St. Louis, MO
American Music Festival 2016: Songs of the Rolling Earth
Troy, NY
American Notes: Harold Meltzer and Jessie Montgomery
New York, NY
Amy Briggs: Piano Etudes of David Rakowski, Vol. 4
New Rochelle, NY
And All Time
Chicago, IL
And the Hummingbird Says . . .
New York, NY
Appeasing Radhika
Brooklyn, NY
ARA: Waterways Time Weaves
Oakland, CA
Artist Engagement Residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Chicago, IL
Blue Streak Ensemble performs 12 concerts
Cleveland, OH
Borders
Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn ReZound
Brooklyn, NY
Carolyn Dorfman Dance’s “Traces”
Newark, NJ
Carve
Oberlin, OH
CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR
New York, NY
Chaconne: a New Work for String Quartet by Fred Lerdahl
Philadelphia, PA
Chamber Dance Project Project
Washington, DC
Chimera: New work for five-string baroque cello by Ken Ueno
Berkeley, CA
City Boy: Music of Judd Greenstein
New York, NY
City of Glass
New York, NY
CLEPSYDRA
Brooklyn, NY
Color Theory: Saxophones and Percussion
Brooklyn and Philadelphia, NY and PA
Connecting Hamburg and Louisiana with Christopher Trapani
Hamburg, DE
Cuatro Corridos – A Chamber Opera
San Diego, CA
Cultivate – emerging composers institute and concert
Cortlandt Manor, NY
Death With Interruptions – bringing a new opera to new audiences
San Francisco, CA
Dia de los Muertos, Lake Monsters, and Plants
Twin Cities, MN
Digital Streaming of SONiC: Sounds of a New Century
New York, NY
DOT AIR – experimental music and art festival
Pawtucket, RI
Dream Seminar/Drömseminarium
Bellport, NY
Ecstatic Music Festival 2016
New York, NY
Edgefest 2016: 20 Years at the Edge
Ann Arbor, MI
Eko Nova – premiere season
Omaha, NE
Embedded Environments
Buffalo, NY
ENSEMBLE IPSE – New Commissions
New York, NY
Family Tree – Street Scenes
Easton, PA
Fathom
Beacon, NY
Fellow Fellow: A Debut Album
Los Angeles, CA
Five
Newark, NJ
FLUX Quartet Double LP: Spencer Topel
Hanover, NH
Galileo
Santa Monica, CA
George Lewis Portrait Album
Chicago, IL
Gerald Clayton | Piedmont Blues Project
Durham, NC
Hannibal’s One Land, One River, One People Composer Community Outreach
Saratoga Springs, NY
Harrison 100 / Thingamajigs 20
Oakland and Joshua Tree, CA
Heritage/Evolution: PRISM Quartet with Joe Lovano
Philadelphia and New York, PA and NY
Hydrogen(2)Oxygen
Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, CA
IlluminArts presents Pulitzer Prize winning composition directed by R. B. Schlather
Miami, FL
Inside You Is Me
San Francisco, CA
InterPlay
Schenectady, NY
Jesse Jones: persona mechanica
Oberlin, OH
John Lindberg & Wadada Leo Smith: Celestial Weather Midwest Duets
Grand Rapids, MI
Ken Ueno: Throat-singing, orchestra, and a new work
Pittsburgh, PA
Kurtág Piano Duet Commissioning Project
New York, NY
L.A. Signal Lab: Whisper & Howl
Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Land Bridge
Winston-Salem, NC
LIgNEouS 4 – A new Work for Marimba and String Quartet
Brooklyn, NY
Luke DuBois Artist Residency and Installation
Brunswick, ME
Marfa Sounding: Alvin Lucier and Charles Curtis
Marfa, TX
Marksman
New York, NY
Mega-Organ: the interactive improvisation space
New York, NY
Mill Town Memories
Lewiston, ME
Music of Maurice Chedid
Bloomfield, NJ
Neurosonics (cont.)
Chicago, IL
New American Works at the 2016 Ojai Music Festival
Ojai, CA
New works for flute and piano: collaboration, commission, and concert tour
Rochester, NY
Newark in Tune
Newark, NJ
OME Marathon Concert
Mesa, AZ
Open Source: the wulf.’s Electronic Music Series
Los Angeles, CA
Petite Afrique: The Other Black in Harlem
New York, NY
Phono Solo
Seattle, WA
Quo Vadis: A New Composition for Old Instruments
Charlottesville, VA
RAGAS & POLYPHONY: New works for multi-track Indian vocals, just intonation piano and tabla by Michael Harrison
New York, NY
Resonant Bodies Festival 2015
New York, NY
Rift
Santa Cruz, CA
SCAT!
New York, NY
Second Inversion – On Demand Videos
Seattle, WA
Should we go?
New York, NY
Silent Voices
New York, NY
Six Perspectives on Latin America
New York, NY
So Percussion and Shara Nova record ‘Time Line’
Brooklyn, NY
Somewhere in the Upstream
Amherst, MA
Speak Angels
San Francisco, CA
String Quartet 3 (working title only)
Buffalo, NY
Studio Recording and Performances of Golijov’s Azul and Other Works with Yo-Yo Ma
Brooklyn, NY
Swarms of Light in Metal: Trevor Saint, glockenspiel
Whitewater, WI
Synth Nights: Lesley Flanigan
New York, NY
The Black Iris Project’s “Brown Baby”
New York, NY
The Click! Commission: Hannah Lash
Boulder, CO
The Dither Extravaganza! 2016
Brooklyn, NY
The Extended, Evening-Length “Myelination”
New York, NY
The Garden of Diverging Paths
New York, NY
The Grey Land
Brooklyn, NY
The Lost String Quartet
New York, NY
The Other Side of My Heart
Greensboro, NC
The performer-composer: performances, lectures, commission projects w/Jane Rigler, flutes & electronics
Multiple Cities, ES
The Pianos without Organs Festival
Raleigh, NC
The Propelled Heart’ World Premiere with Lisa Fischer
San Francisco, CA
The Rendezvous
New York, NY
The Sea: Tales of Lapham
Boston, MA
The Set Up: Saya Lei
New York City, NY
THIEFS: Up/Rooted
New York, NY
Tod Dockstader: From the Archives
Boulder, CO
Trance-figured Night with Dal Niente and Murat Çolak
Chicago, IL
Tyondai Braxton’s Fly By Wire with Dance Heginbotham
New York, NY
Uncharted Destiny
Newark, NJ
Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser, Episode 9
San Francisco, CA
Works for Contrabass by Gosfield, Masaoka, Sharp, & Thirlwell
New York, NY
10 Hairy Legs
Highland Park, NJ
a canary torsi | Yanira Castro
Brooklyn, NY
A Far Cry
Jamaica Plain, MA
Albany Symphony
Albany, NY
Alejandro Rutty
Greensboro, NC
Alia Musica Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Alonzo King LINES Ballet
San Francisco, CA
American Composers Orchestra
New York, NY
Amy Williams
Pittsburgh, PA
Andrew McManus
Chicago, IL
Anthony Davis
San Diego, CA
Bates Dance Festival
Lewiston, ME
Ben Neill
Garrison, NY
Blackstone Valley Tourism Council
Pawtucket, RI
Blue Streak Ensemble
Cleveland, OH
Bowdoin International Music Festival
Brunswick, ME
Brian Baumbusch
Santa Cruz, CA
Bridge Records
New Rochelle, NY
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Brooklyn, NY
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
Santa Cruz, CA
Carlsbad Music Festival
Carlsbad, CA
Carolyn Dorfman Dance
Union, NJ
Castle of our Skins Concert Series
Boston, MA
Chamber Dance Project
Washington, DC
Classical KING FM 98.1 / Second Inversion
Seattle, WA
Collect/Project
Chicago, IL
Colorado Music Festival
Boulder, CO
Companion Star Inc
Patchogue, NY
Cooper Wolken
Los Angeles, CA
Copland House
Cortlandt Manor, NY
Dana Jessen
Oberlin, OH
Daria Faïn
Brooklyn, NY
David Felder
East Aurora, NY
Dena Beard
San Francisco, CA
Dither
Brooklyn, NY
Dohee Lee Puri Arts
Oakland, CA
Dorrance Dance
New York, NY
Duke Performances
Durham, NC
Edward Einhorn
New York, NY
Eighth Blackbird
Chicago, IL
Elinor Frey
Montreal, CA
Empire State Youth Orchestras
Schenectady, NY
Ensemble Dal Niente
Chicago, IL
Ensemble Ipse
Brooklyn, NY
Fifth House Ensemble
Chicago, IL
Garrett + Moulton Productions
San Francisco, CA
Gavin Chuck
New York, NY
Hans Tammen
Brooklyn, NY
Helen Simoneau
Winston-Salem, NC
Ian David Rosenbaum
Brooklyn, NY
IlluminArts
Miami Beach, FL
James Ilgenfritz
New York City, NY
Jane Rigler
Colorado Springs, CO
Javier Farias
Potomac, MD
Jennifer Burris
Bogotá, CO
Jeremy McQueen
New York, NY
John Lindberg
Battle Creek, MI
Joseph Phillips
Brooklyn, NY
Kate Weare
Brooklyn, NY
Keith Witty
New York, NY
Kerrytown Concert House
Ann Arbor, MI
Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival
Burlington, VT
Laura Watts
Easton, PA
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
San Francisco, CA
LEIMAY
Brooklyn, NY
Lisa Bielawa
New York, NY
Malini Srinivasan and Dancers
Brooklyn, NY
Manitoga
Garrison, NY
Martin Rowe
New York, NY
Merkin Concert Hall
New York, NY
Michael Dessen
Irvine, CA
Michael Harrison
Yonkers, NY
Mivos Quartet
Brooklyn, NY
Mosaic Dance Theater Company
Glen Ridge, NJ
MPLS (ImPulse)
Twin Cities, MN
Murat Çolak
Boston, MA
Music Mondays
New York, NY
Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Fort Lee, NJ
Noah Meites
Los Angeles, CA
Oh My Ears
Phoenix, AZ
Ojai Music Festival
Ojai, CA
Omaha Chamber Music Society
Omaha, NE
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
New York, NY
Pianos without Organs
Raleigh, NC
PRISM Quartet, Inc.
Brooklyn and Philadelphia, NY and PA
Resonant Bodies Festival
New York, NY
Robert Maggio
Lambertville, NJ
Rulon Brown
Seattle, WA
Sarah Hennies
Ithaca, NY
Sarah Outhwaite
Brooklyn, NY
Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Saratoga, NY
Sky Macklay
New York, NY
So Percussion
Brooklyn, NY
Somi
New York, NY
Spencer Frohwirth
Newark, NJ
Spencer Topel
Hanover, NH
St. Louis Symphony
St. Louis, MO
Starkland
Boulder, CO
Stephanie Griffin
New York, NY
Susan Narucki
San Diego, CA
The Daedalus Quartet
New York City, NY
The Industry
Los Angeles, CA
The Kitchen
New York, NY
The Knights
Brooklyn, NY
the wulf.
Los Angeles, CA
Thingamajigs
Oakland, CA
Three Notch’d Road: The Charlottesville Baroque Ensemble
Charlottesville, VA
Trevor Saint
New Haven, CT
Urban Bush Women
Brooklyn, NY
WCV, Inc. / Wally Cardona
Brooklyn, NY
Xak Bjerken
Ithaca, NY
Zach Sheets
Rochester, NY
10 Hairy Legs
Highland Park, NJ
4Culture
Seattle, WA
a canary torsi | Yanira Castro
Brooklyn, NY
A Far Cry
Adam Abeshouse
Pelham, NY
John Adams
Andy Akiho
New York, NY
Alarm Will Sound
New York, NY
Alia Musica Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Alonzo King LINES Ballet
American Academy of Indian Classical Music
American Composers Orchestra
New York, NY
American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME)
New York, NY
Sahba Aminikia
San Francisco, CA
Jennifer Archibald
Arditti String Quartet
London
Tony Arnold
Artist Trust
arx duo
New Haven, CT
Clarice Assad
Frauke Aulbert
Katherine Balch
Michael Baldwin
Marcos Balter
Chicago, IL
Reid Bartelme
Bates Dance Festival
Brian Baumbusch
Santa Cruz, CA
Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer
Phoenix, AZ
Beacon Institute
Jeff Beal
Dena Beard
Jenny Beck
Philadelphia, PA
Ashkan Behzadi
New York, NY
Jonathan Bepler
Brooklyn, NY
José Manuel Berenguer
Derek Bermel
Lisa Bielawa
New York, NY
Anne Carolyn Bird
Xak Bjerken
Blackstone Valley Tourism Council
Blue Streak Ensemble
Cleveland, OH
Jorge Boehringer
Prague
Gabriel Bolaños
Davis, CA
Bowdoin International Music Festival
Tyondai Braxton
Brooklyn, NY
BRIC
Brooklyn, NY
Bridge Records
New Rochelle, NY
Amy Briggs
Taylor Brook
New York, NY
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Brooklyn, NY
Margaret Brouwer
Rulon Brown
Seattle, WA
Kyle Bruckmann
Oakland, CA
Helena Bugallo
Svjetlana Bukvich
New York, NY
Jennifer Burris
Matthew Burtner
Virginia/Alaska
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
Santa Cruz, CA
Calder Quartet
Rachel Calloway
Carlsbad Music Festival
Carolyn Dorfman Dance
Nikki Carrara
Center for New Music
San Francisco, CA
Mark Cetilia
Providence, RI
Chamber Dance Project
DC
Jun Chang
Ryan Chase
Bloomington, IN
Anindo Chatterjee
Maurice Chedid
Carolyn Chen
San Diego, CA
Nan-Cheng Chen
New York, NY
Gerald Chenoweth
Daniel Cilli
Palo Alto, CA
Claremont Trio
New York, NY
Classical KING FM 98.1 / Second Inversion
Seattle, WA
Gerald Clayton
Anna Clyne
Chicago, IL
Murat Çolak
Boston, MA
Collect/Project
Chicago, IL
Colorado Music Festival
ComMUSICation
Companion Star Inc
Patchogue, NY
Castle of our Skins Concert Series
Boston, MA
Steven Cook
Copland House
Brian Coughlin
Lauren Cox
Timothy Cramer
Charles Curtis
Dance Heginbotham
Brooklyn, NY
Ian David Rosenbaum
Brooklyn, NY
Anthony Davis
Kris Davis
Amanda DeBoer
Omaha, NE
Decoda
New York, NY
Erik DeLuca
Charlottesville, VA
Nick DePinna
Los Angeles, CA
Michael Dessen
Bryce Dessner
Joseph Di Ponio
New York, NY
Patrick Diamond
New York, NY
Joe Diebes
Brooklyn, NY
Aaron Diehl
Dither
Brooklyn, NY
Dog Star Orchestra
Los Angeles, CA
Dohee Lee Puri Arts
Donovan Dorrance
Michelle Dorrance
New York, NY
Dorrance Dance
Paul Dresher
Berkeley, CA
Luke DuBois
Duke Performances
Durham, NC
Phoebe Dunn
Max Duykers
Brooklyn, NY
Jason Eckardt
Kerhonkson, NY
EcoSono
Erik Ehn
Eighth Blackbird
Chicago, IL
Nikki Einfeld
Edward Einhorn
New York, NY
Empire State Youth Orchestras
Ensamble de Guitarras de Chile
Fireworks Ensemble
New York, NY
Ensemble Dal Niente
Chicago, IL
Ensemble Ipse
Peter Evans
Queens, NY
Experimental Music Yearbook
Daria Faïn
Javier Farias
Potomac, MD
David Felder
East Aurora, NY
Fifth House Ensemble
Chicago, IL
Lisa Fischer
FLUX Quartet
New York City, NY
Kathleen Flynn
Miguel Frasconi
Elinor Frey
Seattle, WA
Friction Quartet
San Francisco, CA
Spencer Frohwirth
Gallery Aferro
Garrett + Moulton Productions
San Francisco, CA
Stacy Garrop
Chicago, IL
Jeffrey Gavett
Sleeping Giant
NY
Mimi Goese
Osvaldo Golijov
Ashleigh Gordon
Boston, MA
Jacqueline Gordon
Annie Gosfield
New York, NY
Grand Central Art Center
Anthony Green
Providence, RI
Judd Greenstein
Brooklyn, NY
Andrew Greenwald
Stanford, CA
Stephanie Griffin
New York, NY
Lorena Guillén
Shanna Gutierrez
Evanston, IL
Matthew Hardy
Patrick Harlin
Ann Arbor, MI
Joe Dan Harper
Craig Harris
Michael Harrison
Yonkers, NY
Harrison House Music & Arts
Joshua Tree, CA
Ted Hearne
Brooklyn, NY
Sarah Hennies
Barbara Heroux
Jeff Herriott
Fort Atkinson, WI
HOCKET
Los Angeles, CA
Matilda Hofman
John Hollenbeck
Binghamton, NY
Robert Honstein
Boston, MA
Shawn Hove
CHIA YU HSU
WI
Jason Hwang
Morris Plains, NJ
James Ilgenfritz
New York City, NY
IlluminArts
Miami Beach, FL
Indexical
Infrequent Seams
innova Recordings
St. Paul, MN
Inter American Development Bank (IADB)
Roulette Intermedium, Inc.
Brooklyn, NY
International Contemporary Ensemble
New York, NY
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
JACK Quartet
New York, NY
Bryan Jacobs
Zachary James
Dana Jessen
Oberlin, OH
Nathalie Joachim
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Michael Douglas Jones
East Patchogue, NY
Darius Jones
Jesse Jones
Columbia, SC
Leila Josefowicz
Gabriel Kahane
Brooklyn, NY
KANEKO
Omaha, NE
Aleck Karis
Ayano Kataoka
Amherst, MA
Danya Katok
KCETlink
Aaron Jay Kernis
Kerrytown Concert House
Ann Arbor, MI
Mashkoor Ali Khan
Amirtha Kidambi
Brooklyn, NY
KIMMEL CENTER
Philadelphia, PA
John Klinghammer
Robert Kocik
Stephan Koplowitz
Mary Kouyoumdjian
Brooklyn, NY
Ulrich Krieger
Los Angeles, CA
Tim Krol
Jennifer Lacey
Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival
Lake Monster Brewing
David Lang
New York, NY
Travis Laplante
Brooklyn, NY
Hannah Lash
New Haven, CT
Ingrid Laubrock
BROOKLYN, NY
Ninh Lê Quan
Dohee Lee
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
San Francisco, CA
LEIMAY
Brooklyn, NY
Tania Leon
Fred Lerdahl
Michael Lewanski
Chicago, IL
George Lewis
New York, NY
Lei Liang
San Diego, CA
John Lindberg
Edgemont, SD
Ellen Lindquist
Rissa
David T. Little
Hannibal Lokumbe
Joe Lovano
New York, NY
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Alvin Lucier
Curtis Robert Macdonald
Brooklyn, NY
Steven Mackey
Princeton, NJ
Sky Macklay
New York, NY
Robert Maggio
Lambertville, NJ
JC Maillard
Malini Srinivasan and Dancers
Manitoga
Garrison, NY
Marfa Live Arts
Daniel Marschak
Los Angeles, CA
Miya Masaoka
Wade Matthews
Paula Matthusen
Ellen Maynard
John Mayrose
Christopher McElroen
Andrew McManus
Kitty McNamee
Pasadena, CA
Mary Kokie McNaugher
Jeremy McQueen
Marcel McVay
Noah Meites
Los Angeles, CA
Harold Meltzer
New York, NY
Merkin Concert Hall
New York, NY
David Clay Mettens
Rochester, NY
Tiffany Mills
Brooklyn, NY
Stratis Minakakis
Cambridge, MA
Mivos Quartet
Brooklyn, NY
Momenta Quartet
New York, NY
Jessie Montgomery
New York, NY
Stephan Moore
Pawtucket, RI
Miho Morita
Brooklyn, NY
Mosaic Dance Theater Company
Glen Ridge, NJ
MPLS (ImPulse)
Nico Muhly
New York, NY
Jeffrey Mumford
Oberlin, OH
Music Maker Relief Foundation
Music Mondays
New York, NY
Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company
Fort Lee, NJ
Sangwook Nam
Susan Narucki
San Diego, CA
Ben Neill
Garrison, NY
Carrie Nelson
New Amsterdam Presents
Brooklyn, NY
Newark Arts Council
Newark School of the Arts
Nonesuch Records
NOW Ensemble
New York, NY
Now Hear Ensemble
Santa Barbara, CA
Mark Nowakowski
Hitomi Oba
Los Angeles, CA
Oh My Ears
Phoenix, AZ
Ojai Music Festival
Ojai, CA
Oktaven Audio
Yonkers, NY
Dennis O’Leary Gullo
Omaha Chamber Music Society
Omaha, NE
Tom Ontiveros
Oracle Hysterical
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
New York, NY
Charlie Otte
Sarah Outhwaite
PAMAR (Pan American Musical Art Research, Inc.)
Christophe Panzani
Bronx, NY
William Parker
Partch
Los Angeles, CA
Perez Art Museum Miami
Althea Pergakis
Heather Petrie
Mark Phillips
Athens, OH
Joseph Phillips
NY
Pianos without Organs
Sam Pluta
New York, NY
Larry Polansky
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“People Power” – The Communal Ethos of Satyagraha
…But I Hate Modern Music
[Title]
10 American Composers’ Works Chosen for 2016 Ars Electronica Forum in Switzerland
12 Composers Among the 178 Guggenheim Fellows for 2016
2015 Koussevitzky Commissions Announced
2016 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award Recipients Announced
2016 Doris Duke Artist Awards Announced
2016 NEA Jazz Masters Announced
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64th Annual BMI Student Composer Award Winners Announced
A Few Things I Failed to Mention
A Letter to Leslie Bassett (1923-2016)
A Tribute to Jed Speare, Composer and Phonographer (1954-2016)
A Week in Havana
About Those 2016 Grammy Nominations
ACF Announces 2016 Champion of New Music Awards
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After One Ear
American Academy of Arts and Letters Announces 2016 Music Awards Totaling Over $200K
American Academy of Arts and Letters Announces Winners of Vocal Composition Prizes Totalling $90K
An Atheist Composer on Choral Music
An Ode to Community
AndrΓ Previn: How Lucky I Am Now
Andy Milne on Star Trek
Andy Milne: Putting the Theory Into Practice
Are Transformative Fair Use Principles Foul to Musicians?
Are Unions Relevant to New Music?
Arto Lindsay: Space, Parades, and Confrontational Aesthetics
Bernd Klug: traces of [dis]location
Better Know a Composer: Disambiguation Edition
Bridging Gastronomy and Art Requires Making Connections
Build the Playground: Carolyn O’Brien on composing through depression
Cabrillo and the Post-Alsopian Future
Celebrating John Duffy with Music and Memories
Chamber Music America Announces $483,000 in Grants for New Works
Choosing the Three-Letter Response Over the Two-Letter One
Classical and Contemporary Cambodian Music and Dance
Classical and New Music Culture in Taiwan
Close Listening: Music and Genre
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Communal Experimentalism in the Sixties: The Pulsa Group
Complex but Emotional–Remembering Ursula Mamlok (1923-2016)
Complicity and the Chemical Senses
Composer Advocacy Notebook: A Tale of Three Cities
Composers, Performers, and Consent
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Composing is a Lonely Craft, but We Can’t Do It Alone
Con vibrato ma non troppo: Rethinking Sopranos
Congrats to the 2016 Grammy Award Winners
Copyright Conundrums for Collaborators
Courting the “Lay” Listener
Creating Points of Entry Into Opera Through Video
Creation is Messy
Cultivating a Sense of Belonging: Our Debate over Electroacoustic Music Terminology
Daniel Wohl: The Seamless Ideal
Define Inspiration
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Do You Have the Chutzpah to Take a Gamble on Fair Use?
Electroacoustic Music is Not About Sound
Electroacoustic Music with Video: Comparison with Sound for Film
Enthusiastic, Shy, Quirky and Brilliant: Remembering John Eaton (1935-2015)
Five Takeaways from the Conversation on Female Composers
Forging Institutional Networks through BAM’s Next Wave Festival
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Announces 2016 Award Recipients
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Good Career Hunting: On Being a Deer Chaser
Good Old-Fashioned Human-to-Human Connection on a Very Honest Level
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He Knew Everything and Everyone–Remembering David Stock (1939-2015)
Henry Threadgill wins 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music
Homage to Captain Swing
How Landscape Music Evokes the Natural World
I don’t have to choose, do I?
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If the Medium Is the Message, Then Who Should Sing It?
Imagining Community at Bang on a Can’s First Marathon
Improvising With the Instrument, Not Just On It – A Remembrance of Paul Bley (1932-2016)
In The Absence of Money
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Interview with Daniel Spreadbury of Dorico
It’s a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping
It’s Difficult to be a World Showcase with Limited Resources: The 2015 ISCM World Music Days
James Moore: The Hunt for Sonic Solutions
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John King: It All Becomes Music
Jonathan Berger and Christopher Trapani Win 2016 Rome Prize
Kate Soper: Real Communication
Lessons from the Outside: A Venture Capital Firm for New Music
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Listening to Labor in the “Little Cities of Black Diamonds”
Loving the Lottery: Arts Funding for the Unfunded
MacArthur’s Creative and Effective Institutions and Bielecki Foundation Awards Announced
Maintaining a Creative Life: New Orleans Edition
Making It: Music and Money
Manifesting Community in Early Minimalism
Mary Ellen Childs: Engaging All the Senses
Mary Ellen Childs: On Merging Sound and Scent
Mary Jane Leach: Sonic Confessions
Memories of Milton
Michael Jackson-Themed Orchestra Piece Wins ASCAP Nissim Prize
Missy Mazzoli: Communication, Intimacy, and Vulnerability
Mister, Make Me a… Song?
Money, Support, and the Voice of New Music
Muhal Richard Abrams: Think All, Focus One
Music After Life: Guiding Lights
Music After Life: Posthumous Lessons
Music After Life: Searching for Survival
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Music Inspired by Visual Art
Music is So Flippin’ Hard: Adversity Training for Musicians
Music Publishers Association Announces 2016 Paul Revere Awards
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Musicians at Work: Ensemble Residencies as Social Relationships
My Neck, My Back: Composing through PTSD and Chronic Pain
New Detroit Symphony Streaming Service Filled with New Music
New Music and Place: Creating Community
New Music as Advocacy for Place
New Music for Chinese Instruments
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New Music on Vinyl: Everybody Loves It, But It Doesn’t Make Much Sense
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New Music USA’s Six Submissions to the 2016 ISCM World Music Days
New Music: A Product of Modernity (and Capitalism)
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NewMusicBox Mix: 2015 Staff Picks
Now Streaming on a Device Near You: New Music Playlists
NYFA and EtM Announce Fellowships and Residencies to NY Composers
One Year as a Composer, Computer Musician, and Teacher in Taiwan
Opera Philadelphia Names Rene Orth 6th Composer in Residence
Overthinking Genre
Para-composition
Paul Moravec: The Whole Range of Human Emotion
Positive Power: Develop the Growth Mindset of Success
Power of the Project-Based Life
Productivity, Pressure, and the Power of Listening: Marcos Balter
Pursuing Diversity: New Voices, New Sounds
Queer and Loathing in Las Vegas: Performing Community in Hagen’s Vera
Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head
Remembering Composer and MTC Founder John Duffy (1926-2015)
Remembering Steven Stucky (1949-2016)
Roundtable: Facing the Hard Questions
Roundtable: Let’s Make a List
Roundtable: The Bonnie Jones Grant
Royce Vavrek: So Many Juicy, Amazing Words
Rudresh Mahanthappa: Getting To Know Who I Am
Saad Haddad: It’s Not Going to Be Exact
Sarah Kirkland Snider: The Full 360
Seven Musicians Are Among the 37 New USA Fellows Announced for 2015
Should Composers Read Music Critics?
Six Emerging Composers Chosen for All-Scholarship Program at Copland House
Sixteen Jazz Composers’ Works to be Performed by Three Orchestras
Songs by David Lang and J. Ralph Denied Oscar Performance
Sonic Uprising: Songs for Freddie Gray
Sounds Heard’Liaisons: Re-Imaging Sondheim from the Piano
Space Matters: A Call for Community Action
Spreadsheets and Skeptics: a philosophical tale of data and music
Stay Tuned: Celebrating Ben Johnston’s 90th Birthday with his 10 String Quartets
Steve Reich Awarded 2016 Nemmers Prize
Steven Stucky (1949-2016)
Still B.A. After All These Years
Stream the 2016 Bang on a Can Marathon
Structural and Playback Issues in Current Electroacoustic Music
Summer Rewind: 10 Posts To Read Again
Tasting Notes
Tempering My Friends Anxiety and Doubt
The Best and Worst Thing: A conversation with Keeril Makan and Daniel Felsenfeld
The Case for Radio
The Cistern Chapel: Resonance from the Pacific Northwest
The Defeat of New Music
The Forgotten Man: Teo Macero and Bitches Brew
The Gathering Storm: How We Made a Conference
The Generalization Generation
The Long and Winding Road
The Opportunity of Electroacoustic Musicology
The Pun is Mightier than the Portmanteau
The Rush of Performing vs. Merely Being a Witness
The Slow Listening Revolution
The Wizards of New Music: Reflections on the 2016 ISCM World Music Days
Thirteen Emerging Composers Will Participate in Two of USA’s Most Prestigious Orchestra Programs
This Week: Musical Creativity and Mental Health
Timbre, Envelope and Variation in Electroacoustic Music
Tony Conrad (1940-2016): Writing “Minor” History
Towards The Future: New Music in the 21st Century
Tracing Influence
Two American Composers Among Five Chosen for Gaudeamus Shortlist
Unbroken Art
Vertical Performance
Vinfonies, Nessun Dorma, and Gastromorphology
We Need More (On-Demand) Films of New Operas
What 4’33” Teaches Us
What Are You Trying to Decide in Your Career?
What I Didn’t Learn in Music School
What to Ware? A Guide to Today’s Technological Wardrobe
When Do I Get to Stop Exposing Myself?
Where Is Do?
Whose Classical Music? Assumptions and Representation in Online Participatory Projects
Why Landscape Music is More Important Than Ever
Why Pastiche Has Taken Over Music
William G. Baumol and You: (Broader Economic) Context Is Everything
Winning the Lottery
Words After Music: Stories from the Archive
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