Tida weaves music, storytelling, movement and film into an evening-length performance exploring maternal lineage and intergenerational cultural identity. Mary Prescott -- the winner of a 2019 ACF | create award, which sparked this project -- investigates her mother’s undocumented Thai ancestry, her experience as a Southeast Asian immigrant raising biracial children in the American Midwest, […]

Versatile drummer and percussionist Thurman Barker has performed with countless singers and artists from the worlds of classical, pop, jazz, and those that defy categorization. His ensemble performs excerpts from three of his orchestral scores — South Side Suite, Pandemic Fever, and Mr. Speed-str — on a special double bill with “musical power couple” (The […]

In this "speed dating" event hosted by American Composers Forum, artistic directors from GALA LGBTQ choruses across North America are gathering in Minneapolis to tour Orchestra Hall, Central Lutheran Church, and the Minneapolis Convention Center in preparation for the upcoming GALA Choruses Festival 2024. We’d like to introduce these conductors to the wealth of choral […]

Performed and recorded in a church just across the street from the Minnesota State Capitol on December 28, 2020, only months after Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, We Sick (on innova Recordings, the in-house record label of American Composers Forum) is a record of staggeringly emotional improvised music, full of contemplation, fear, and fury. deVon […]

Witness the world-premiere performances of Canto Caló, a song cycle by composer Nicolás Lell Benavides, performed by Friction Quartet and mezzo soprano Melinda Martinez Becker. Following the world premiere, Benavides and Becker will release the work on innova Recordings as part of our Bay Area Pilot program. Canto Caló takes inspiration from Benavides and Becker's […]

The first orchestral concert of Composing Inclusion -- a collaboration between the New York Philharmonic, ACF, and the Juilliard School’s Preparatory Division, made possible with funding from the Sphinx Venture Fund -- will take place on May 6 at David Geffen Hall (Lincoln Center). It will feature world premieres by composers Jordyn Davis and James […]

For Bang on a Can's 2023 LONG PLAY FESTIVAL (May 5 – 7), Quince Ensemble will perform love fail, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. Quince Ensemble, an all-female contemporary music vocal quartet, recorded the piece for innova Recordings, the American Composers Forum's in-house label. Released to great acclaim in 2020, love fail consists of […]

Stephanie Chou -- a 2016 ACF JFund (now ACF | create) award winner -- is a Chinese-American jazz composer/saxophonist/singer who blends influences from her Chinese heritage with Western jazz and pop to create a bracingly original sound that draws audiences across the globe, creating immediate cross-cultural connections. Comfort Girl, her bold, innovative song cycle/jazz opera, […]

On Saturday, June 24, the Japanese composer Asuka Kakitani presents a concert at Studio Z (St. Paul, Minn.), to support her new solo percussion album Twelve Months in Minnesota (out on June 30), featuring Eri Isomura and inspired by nature in the state. Kakitani is a 2019 McKnight Composer Fellow and a 2016 JFund awardee […]

The world premiere of the song cycle A Path Home/Camino a Casa, with music by Victor Márquez-Barrios and lyrics by Márquez-Barrios and Rodolfo Nieto, will take place on Friday, October 27, at 7:30pm in Truman State University. These songs were inspired by testimonies provided by a group of Latino immigrants living in the Twin Cities area […]