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 […]
Continue Readingwritten 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 […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
by Tim Hansen Kids who grew up in the ’80s came of age when, for the first time since the industrial revolution kicked off, the international community began to ask […]
Continue Reading
by Tim Hansen Every non-American school kid like me grows up knowing a handful of US geographic icons. I can’t remember a time I didn’t know about the Grand Canyon, […]
Continue Reading
By Tim Hansen On a bare hill overlooking the village of Burnley in Lancashire, England, stands the Singing Ringing Tree, an array of galvanised steel pipes stacked in a swirled […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” So observed […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen The Alaskan town of Homer is, in a word, remote. Although it’s only about 120 miles south of Anchorage as the crow flies, it’s one of […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen Until a few years ago, composer, saxophonist and JFund awardee Erin Rogers did not have an especial bent towards science fiction; a childhood smattered with the […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen Galway Kinnell’s 1973 epic poem The Book of Nightmares is, to put it mildly, bleak. For the most part, it is a horrifying critique of the […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen When Christopher Cresswell was in the third grade, his teacher asked his class to write about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Ten […]
Continue Reading
By Will Wlizlo Nona Marie Invie getting some good vibes from members of Anonymous Choir. Some music is born on a hard bench in a piano lesson studio. Other sounds […]
Continue Reading
by Jocelyn Hagen Growing up as an only child in the country, outside a small town in North Dakota, allowed me to spend a lot of time inside my head. […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen Fresh-faced young wannabe composers arriving at college are told in Composing 101: find your voice. Refine it down. Success means choosing a niche and painstakingly carving […]
Continue Reading
By Tim Hansen 2013 JFund awardee David Hertzberg is writing a work for saxophones. Four of them. The PRISM Quartet to be precise, which is no small coup. PRISM are […]
Continue Reading
By Tim Hansen One afternoon in the summer of 2012, JFund awardee Eric Nathan arrived in Aldeburgh in England, to participate in the eponymous annual music festival established there by […]
Continue Reading
ACF is pleased to co-present the premiere of Krai by Olga Bell as part of the SPCO Liquid Music series. The piece received support in 2011 from the JFund commissioning […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen Rejection is the pits. All artists experience it at some point, and there’s no denying that rejection can sting. And yet sometimes a rejection can be […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen Composer Christopher Trapani had a typically active upbringing for an aspiring musician growing up in New Orleans: playing guitar in coffeehouses one day and gospel piano […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen American Composers Forum held a friendly soiree in New York this November for ACF members, hosted by president John Nuechterlein. The night was an informal opportunity […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen Composer and JFund awardee Mary Kouyoumdjian is drawn to colliding worlds. As a first-generation Armenian-American, Kouyoumdjian is perfectly poised to take advantage of the old and […]
Continue Reading
Written by Tim Hansen The Jerome Foundation’s Jerome Fund for New Music – the JFund – has been instrumental in launching the careers of emerging composers for thirty years, and […]
Continue Reading