People Archives - American Composers Forum

Adam Vidiksis Reflects on the First Year of the Steven R. Gerber Residency Program with ACF-Philly and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018

Last year, ACF-Philadelphia partnered with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP) for a three-year initiative: The Steven R. Gerber Residency Program. Each year, one composer is selected to work with COP and compose a new piece specifically for the chamber orchestra, all while participating in other residency activities during COP’s full season. The composer selected […]

JFund Awardee Leaha Maria Villareal on Collaborative Relationships

Tuesday, May 1st, 2018

Written by Michael Cyrs. There are perks to playing music as a group. On top of taking cues and performing, you learn fundamental relationship lessons. Remember how you’d sulk about how horrible your college roommate was at doing the dishes, only to realize later on that you hadn’t once cleaned the bathroom the whole time […]

JFund Awardee Joseph C. Phillips and Genre Fluidity

Wednesday, March 7th, 2018

Written by Michael J. Cyrs. “America is a great place. But it’s also not so great. You can have those two happen at the same time, and that’s a beautiful thing,” says 2016 JFund awardee Joseph C. Phillips as he walks his Alaskan Malamute through Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. He doesn’t compose for his Numinous project […]

Stop and Smell the Music: ACF Board Chair Mary Ellen Childs Pairs Sound and Scent

Monday, February 5th, 2018

In 1960, Smell-o-Vision came to the big screen. Accompanying a movie called The Scent of Mystery, moviegoers were treated to 30 different scents throughout the course of the film, triggered by the soundtrack. It came on the heels of 1959’s debut of AromaRama with a movie called Behind the Great Wall. Both attempts to marry […]

From Moby Dick to Salvador Dali, JFund Awardee Brian Petuch Is Narratively Limitless

written by Michael J. Cyrs In 1845, when expressionism was decades away from being an identifiable movement, artist JMW Turner showcased four oil paintings at London’s Royal Academy. Despite the poor reviews, his use of broad strokes to evoke natural light was novel for its time. There’s a pervading suggestion that Herman Melville took these […]

Reimagining the Accessibility of Classical Music: JFund Awardee JP Merz

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

written by Michael J. Cyrs At many classical music performances, concertgoers place themselves at the whims of the composer, whose music might often communicate: Here’s how I did it, here’s what you’re supposed to feel, and so on. These are demands Wisconsin via Los Angeles composer JP Merz doesn’t want to make. Although he is […]

JFund Awardee Brian Mark: Experience History As It Happens

Wednesday, December 6th, 2017

by Michael Cyrs “I love the art of film music, but I’m not at all into defining labels when it comes to one being a concert or film composer,” explains JFund awardee Brian Mark about some of his recent work. Although he studied film extensively, he’s more of a historical realist. Mark wasn’t yet born […]

Rhythm, Melody, and Dissonance: Trevor Babb’s Guitar

Monday, October 30th, 2017

By Michael Cyrs Close your eyes, turn out the lights, and listen to Trevor Babb’s “Septet.” Each guitar note paints a different color of a landscape in your dream. Dozens of other strings come in, and trees form around a pasture. After 90 seconds, the notes climb up the scale as the sun shines down […]

M. Lamar: Bodylessness and History as Told through Genres

Wednesday, October 4th, 2017

JFund Profile by Michael Cyrs “Genre-defying” and “experimental” are words that critics enjoy tossing around, especially when it comes to genre-mixing. However, in music, most genre-mixing is old news, and the terms only gesture at describing a diverse arrangement. Every once in awhile, though, someone earns the terms. M. Lamar’s records are shining examples that […]

Letter from Steven Homestead, New ACF-Los Angeles President

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017

I am humbled and excited to announce that as of September 1st, I begin my term as the next President of the American Composers Forum of Los Angeles. In addition, Alicia Byer begins serving as ACF-LA Secretary and Treasurer. She steps into this leadership position having most recently run ACF-LA’s music education program. We join […]

Asuka Kakitani Conquers the Impossible Task of Representing Nature in Jazz

Tuesday, September 5th, 2017

by Michael Cyrs Reality is rarely compartmentalized into the rigid structure of a three-minute pop song. Recalling the full beauty of a painting or a landscape can’t be related without losing the finer details. Longer compositions, it seems, make for music that’s most representative of mother nature. Japanese-born, Minnesota-based composer Asuka Kakitani was on the […]

Steph Chou Makes a Smooth Transition from Jazz Saxophone to Multicultural Bliss on Last Year’s Asymptote

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017

by Michael Cyrs In May of 1995, Taiwan lost a cultural trailblazer. Teresa Teng, then 42 and already a legend in her time, died while on vacation in Thailand. Known for bringing romantic pop songs into Chinese culture in the ’70s, Teng’s music, most notably “The Moon Represents My Heart,” can still be heard all […]

Getting Lost: ACF Board Member J. Anthony Allen Takes on the Arctic

by J. Anthony Allen I spent the month of June on a residency aboard a ship in the Arctic. This was a residency primarily designed for visual artists, but I’ve never been one to turn down an exciting trip, so I decided to use the experience to work on a new String Quartet. Even though […]

Aleksandr Brusentsev’s Quest to Explore Perspectives of Music and Art

Wednesday, July 5th, 2017

Written by Michael Cyrs   Even if it’s with someone unquestionably genuine, verbal communication is difficult to recall. Although one may remember the words that were spoken, there were feelings, objects, weather, and countless other subatomic details that were simultaneously present during conversation. The same goes for life events. Say you lost a job or […]

Josh Hernandez-Camen’s Quest for Authenticity in Composition

Tuesday, May 30th, 2017

A profile of a 2016 NextNotes finalist by Michael Cyrs A Google search of Ángel Jochi Hernandez-Camen (or Josh, as he prefers to be called) pulls up a small handful of sites. You’ll find a video of his masterful “Ancient Ruins,” a short bio from your esteemed Forum, and some scattered notes and performances. Go […]

In Service of Classical Music: Brandon Ridenour’s Noble Contributions to the Trumpet

Wednesday, May 10th, 2017

National Composer Contest Awardee Profile There’s a high degree of bias that comes to mind when people think of the trumpet. From that overly macho guy you knew who played it in high school to players of distinction, it’s generally received as an instrument that will not only play the melody, but will physically shove […]

Composing Through Collaboration: Clarice Assad’s Comprehensive Approach to Teaching Music

Tuesday, March 7th, 2017

written by Michael Cyrs The best pieces of art have a three-dimensional feel to them. Whether you’re looking at it ten years after inception, as a companion piece to a film, or simply an album’s artwork, the total picture of the music is essential. Such is the case with the seminal bossa/samba album, 1965’s Getz/Gilberto. […]

Steven Snowden

Wednesday, February 8th, 2017

written by Michael Cyrs “I’m still learning to write music, actually,” says National Composition Contest awardee Steven Snowden. I’m speaking to him over the phone: I’m in Minneapolis, he’s at the prestigious MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and both of us are surrounded by snow. His area code suggests Missouri, but his current address is […]

Meet New Board Member: Stephen Miles

Friday, November 4th, 2016

ACF’s summer development intern, Henry Dykstal, conducted a series of interviews with our incoming cohort of board members. This month, we’re featuring Stephen Miles. After reading his interview, learn even more about him here. 1. How did music come into your life as something you wanted to pursue as your life’s calling? From the time […]

Clara Latham: Singing about Talking

Thursday, October 13th, 2016

written by Tim Hansen In the 19th century, the Age of Enlightenment, there was a great leap forward in science and medicine; many of the standard practices that make up today’s medical professional’s tool kit originating in the days of Beethoven and Brahms. But scientific progress is not a highway, it’s a jumbled mess of […]

Meet New Board Member: Asha Srinivasan

Sunday, October 9th, 2016

ACF’s 2016 summer development intern, Henry Dykstal, conducted a series of interviews with our incoming cohort of board members. Meet Asha Srinivasan! After reading her interview, learn even more about her here. 1. How did music come into your life as something you wanted to pursue as your life’s calling? Music has always been a […]

Sean Harold: Unintentional Iconoclast

Friday, September 2nd, 2016

written by Tim Hansen In the email ping-pong prefacing this article, JFund awardee Sean Harold warned me that his biographies “tended to be heavy on the sarcasm and light on actual detail.” For example, one iteration of his biography began: “Initially trained as a jazz bassist and improviser, Sean Harold turned his attention to concert […]

Yue Lor: A Disappearing History

Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

written by Tim Hansen The Vietnam War. An international clash of ideologies fought in the theatre of a small southeast Asian country. And it sucked. For everyone. Scarcely a person alive in the US today could be ignorant of the misery thousands of young conscripts and their families endured at the behest of their own […]

James Everest: The Natural Collaborator

Thursday, March 3rd, 2016

written by Tim Hansen When JFund awardee James Everest was three years old, he composed a thunderstorm on his parents’ upright piano. He recalls the “crashing thunder on clusters of low keys, and sprinkling rain drops on individual high notes—with an arc of the storm building and dissipating over time.” And sure, while the actual […]

Tiffany Skidmore: Vocalist Composer

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016

written by Tim Hansen “My music is almost always several times removed from its inspiration,” states vocalist and JFund awardee Tiffany Skidmore. Both prolific and versatile, Skidmore has produced an extensive catalogue of work that ranges from finely crystalline chamber music to gothic contemporary art song fused with electronics. Perhaps then it’s unsurprising that the […]

Alex Temple: Cheese Connoisseur

Tuesday, December 8th, 2015

by Tim Hansen Composer Alex Temple is fascinated by cheese. Not the dairy kind. The musical kind. Faux world-music. TV news themes. General midi instruments. Sound logos. That music your massage therapist puts on and it’s all soothing pads and bells and a husky-voiced alto going “ooh ooh aah ooh” over a floaty bed of […]

høle in the skY: Kathy McTavish

Friday, November 20th, 2015

By Tim Hansen Composers are generally a diversely intellectual bunch. In addition to their music training, it’s common for them to have undertaken some other form of study or have an abiding curiosity in a non-musical field that gives a specific flavour to their art. JFund awardee Kathy McTavish has a C.V. that, when compared […]

William Gardiner: The Intricate Connection of Sound and Shadow

Wednesday, November 4th, 2015

by Tim Hansen Contemporary art photographer artist Bill Henson is a wizard with a camera. Internationally renowned for his sometimes controversial exhibitions, the Australian artist is famous for creating textures in his images that are close to those in paintings. In particular, he is recognised for his skilful use of chiaroscuro, a visual art technique […]

Jascha Narveson: Small ‘e’ Electronics

Sunday, October 4th, 2015

  written by Tim Hansen If one wants to gain an insight into a composer’s brain, reading their bio is a good place to start. Usually these are carefully curated mini-autobiographies, where the composer outlines what they consider to be their proudest achievements, most cherished influences, beloved mentors and general philosophy on music and the […]

Shawn Jaeger: The Appalachian Tradition in the 21st Century

Monday, September 7th, 2015

by Tim Hansen In 1942 Aaron Copland was commissioned to write a new ballet for Martha Graham with broad brief of creating something “American themed”. No prizes for guessing the work: Appalachian Spring was an instant success, immediately becoming a cornerstone of Americana and continuing to thrive today in concert halls and SUV commercials. Years […]