YWC Workshop Series
2020-07-20 17:00 - 18:15, 2020-07-16 17:00 - 18:15, 2020-07-13 17:00 - 18:15 (America/Chicago) | MN
Young Women Composers (YWC) is proud to announce the curation of a dual-streamed, 100% free workshop series that will feature some of the most prominent and exciting voices in new music today. All sessions will take place on Zoom – please register at the event website for each workshop.
Our series is divided into two streams:
1. The Process: presentations by female-identifying or non-binary composers about their compositional process, from sketches to final product
Featuring presentations by Kate Soper, Vivian Fung, Angélica Negrón, Nina C. Young, and Pamela Z
2. Artistry in 2020: presentations by female-identifying or non-binary artists, entrepreneurs, and change-makers in the new music scene
Featuring presentations by Aiden Feltkamp, Eve O’Donnell, Sarah Williams, Claire Chase, and Gabriela Lena Frank
missed a workshop?
view our archived videos here (live until september 30).

Connecting ACO Community: Weekly Premieres
2020-07-19 17:00, 2020-07-12 17:00, 2020-07-05 17:00, 2020-06-28 17:00, 2020-06-21 17:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual, United States
American Composers Orchestra Announces a new solo commissioning initiative in response to the COVID-19 crisis with online world premieres beginning Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 5pm on Zoom
$5 tickets* available through Eventbrite
If the $5 entrance fee poses a barrier to participation, interested listeners will be asked to fill out an anonymous form at https://bit.ly/ACOConnectComp or email Aiden Feltkamp at aiden@americancomposers.org to request a fee waiver.
In response to the impacts of COVID-19 on composers and performers, American Composers Orchestra announces Connecting ACO Community, a new initiative to commission short works for solo instrument or voice. Each composer will receive $500 to write the work, and each performer will receive $500 to perform the work, with the rights to stream for six months. With this project, ACO aims to support artists who need financial assistance; to create new work that will live beyond this crisis; and provide virtual, interactive performances to ACO’s supporters and the general public.
Ticketholders will receive a private link to join the performance, and all of the proceeds from the ticket sales will go solely to fund artists involved in this project. The composer, performer, and a host (ACO President Ed Yim or ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel, who is also donating his own performance to the project) will hold an online chat with attendees after the performance. The recorded session will be available within 24 hours after the performance on ACO’s website and social media platforms, as well as on MUSIC on the REBOUND: an online festival for participating in live events as well as a platform for streaming concerts.
Connecting ACO Community Volume 2 Composer-Performer Teams and Schedule of Events
Sunday, June 7, 2020 at 5pm ET:
Joseph Pereira & Chester Englander, percussion (register/buy tickets)
Sunday, June 14, 2020 – OFF
Sunday, June 21, 2020 at 5pm ET:
Shara Nova & Ahya Simone, harp (register/buy tickets)
Note: Ahya Simone was unable to appear during the originally scheduled premiere in Volume 1, during which Shara Nova premiered a version for voice and guitar. This installment features Simone performing a second premiere of the work When I Said Let a Change Come for harp.
Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 5pm ET:
Karena Ingram & Monica Ellis, bassoon (register/buy tickets)
Sunday, July 5, 2020 at 5pm ET:
Krists Auznieks & Stephen Gosling, piano (register/buy tickets)
Sunday, July 12, 2020 at 5pm ET:
Lembit Beecher & Seth Parker Woods, cello (register/buy tickets)
Sunday, July 19, 2020 at 5pm ET:
Alejandro Basulto Martinez & Alecia Lawyer, oboe (register/buy tickets)

Chamber Music Northwest
2020-07-18 19:00 - 23:30, 2020-07-11 19:00 - 23:30, 2020-07-04 19:00 - 23:30, 2020-06-27 19:00 - 23:30, 2020-06-21 19:00 - 23:30 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
Concerts will premiere at 7 p.m. Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays from June 22-July 26. Each performance will be available for viewing until 11:59 p.m. the next day on the Chamber Music Northwest YouTube channel.

Castle of Our Skins: Founder's Chat Series
2020-07-16 12:00 - 12:45, 2020-07-09 12:00 - 12:45 (America/Chicago) | MN
This is a conversational series with the leaders of several outstanding music organizations representing Black artists. Ashleigh Gordon and Anthony R. Green – the Co-Founders of Castle of our Skins – will hold discussions with an international roster of Black women – the leaders of these music organizations. Tune in on our Facebook homepage for these weekly interviews to learn:
About their musical journey.
The origin stories of each organization.
How their work has changed and evolved.
And of course more…
The lineup includes:
The String Queens : July 9th
D-Composed : July 16th
Dr. Louise Toppin : July 23rd
Challenge the Stats : July 30th
We Free Strings : August 6th
The String Arkestra : August 13th
Vivazza Ensemble : August 20th

ACF Town Hall on Recordings
2020-07-14 13:00 - 14:00, 2020-07-08 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
As ACF begins a new 5 years strategic plan, along with the areas that we continue to create, we are going to be looking at our recordings program and how we support artists through these programs. We invite you to contribute to this conversation. Below are some questions we will consider during this ACF Town Hall.
What has been your experience with recording/releasing music?
What part(s) of the recording/releasing music process do you wish there was more support for?
What may be some barriers to making a recording for you?
Label vs Self Releasing?

ACF Monthly Book Club – July
2020-07-06 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
As an organization dedicated to living musical creators and cultivating a community for their work to thrive in, ACF strives to be diverse, inclusive, and equitable like many in our shared ecosystem. To do so, however, we must acknowledge the historical exclusion of non-white artists in the musical world – particularly Western European-based classical music – and provide a platform to the very artists we seek to support.
Reading of this month:
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
REGISTER HERE

Ensemble Evolution Public Show
2020-07-02 19:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual, United States
Featuring International Contemporary Ensemble and Ensemble Evolution Participants.
The International Contemporary Ensemble’s Ensemble Evolution program culminates with a virtual concert curated by participants and faculty featuring the world premiere of Nicole Mitchell’s Inescapable Spiral, specifically re-designed for the digital world.

Presented by The International Contemporary Ensemble, Experimental Sound Studios, and the College of Performing Arts as part of the Ensemble Evolution summer intensive.

Braxton75: The Music of Anthony Braxton – Navigation Through Form
2020-07-02 13:00 (America/New_York) | MN
Talk by James Fei
Tri-Centric Foundation
In celebration of Anthony Braxton’s 75th birthday year, International Contemporary Ensemble and Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation are collaborating to present the very first online Braxton75 event accessible to the public. In this talk, Tri-Centric president James Fei, who has been working closely with Braxton for over two decades, will offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Braxton compositions. Specifically, using scores and audiovisual material, Fei will examine the intersection of improvisation and notation, the changing role of the performer, and the fluid notions of “composition” in Braxton’s works.
James Fei (b. Taipei, Taiwan) moved to the US in 1992 to study electrical engineering and has since been active as a composer and performer on saxophones and live electronics. Works by Fei have been performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, MATA Micro Orchestra and Noord-Hollands Philharmonisch Orkest. His recordings can be found on Leo Records, Improvised Music from Japan, CRI, Krabbesholm and Organized Sound. Compositions for Fei’s own ensemble of four alto saxophones focus on physical processes of saliva, fatigue, reeds crippled by cuts and the threshold of audible sound production, while his sound installations and performance on live electronics often focus on electronic and acoustic feedback. Fei has taught at Mills College in Oakland since 2006 where he is Professor of Electronic Arts and Head of the Music Department and Art and Technology Program. He is the recipient of the 2014 Grants for Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and currently the president of Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Foundation. www.jamesfei.com
The Tri-Centric Foundation is a non-profit organization which supports the work and legacy of American composer and musician Anthony Braxton. Our primary activities are preservation and dissemination of his scores, recordings, and writings, production of performances, and pedagogy. https://tricentricfoundation.org/

Presented by The International Contemporary Ensemble and College of Performing Arts as part of the Ensemble Evolution summer intensive.

2020 NextNotes Award Ceremony Livestream
2020-06-27 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
Join us on Saturday, June 27, 2020 at 7:30pm CDT as, for the first time, NextNotes will culminate in a live-streamed awards ceremony emceed by public radio and podcast creator of Trilloquy, Garrett McQueen. The ceremony will celebrate 2020’s six talented creators who were selected from over 140 across the US and represent the skill and range of music being created today. Learn about their experience as part of this year’s cohort and hear samples from the award winning creations.

The live ceremony will be available to view on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. A link for Facebook and Instagram will be posted to ACF’s social media channels; to view on YouTube, you can bookmark this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Hu-sxY0T0&feature=youtu.be

During the ceremony, you’ll get to know the following winners were selected for skill, originality, potential, and strong creative voices:

KiMani Bridges (Louisville, KY)
Helen Feng (Deerfield, MA)
Gene Angelo Nucal (Mesquite, TX)
Rohan Srinivasan (Portland, OR)
Jasper Talwani (Los Angeles, CA)
Charlotte Weinstein (Brooklyn, NY)

These NextNotes creators have been participating in a robust series of virtual conversations, workshops, and lessons with all-star mentors Marcos Balter, Mary Ellen Childs, and Joe Horton. You can learn more about NextNotes and this year’s cohort here.

ListN Up
2020-06-26, 2020-06-19 | Virtual, United States
ListN Up is a series of weekly artist-curated playlists. Born from a desire to keep artists sharing and connected during times of isolation, ListN Up offers an intimate sonic portrait of contemporary artists by showcasing the diverse and stylistically varied music that influences their creative practice. This series is sponsored by American Composers Forum/innova Recordings with new releases every Friday on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.

Living Music: Pirate Radio
2020-06-25 21:00, 2020-06-23 21:00, 2020-06-18 21:00 (America/New_York) | MN
Living Music: Pirate Radio is a quarantine variety show, hosted by Nadia Sirota, that brings performances, conversation and community directly from socially-distanced artists to viewers at home. Watch on Facebook Live Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific and see more than a dozen archived episodes!

ACF Town Hall
2020-06-22 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
We feel that the best way we make it through this challenge is as a community. Taking this into consideration, we are hosting a series of virtual town halls where you can just drop in and hang out.

Register

American Composers Forum and Third Sound to present virtual screening of Heard in Havana
2020-06-21 20:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | MN
On Sunday, June 21, at 8:00 p.m. EDT, ACF and Third Sound will present a virtual screening of Heard in Havana. The event will feature a pre-screening discussion with members of the 2015 delegation to Cuba and previously unreleased archival performance footage, as well as the complete film. The screening will be viewable on Third Sound’s and the American Composers Forum’s respective Facebook pages (facebook.com/tercersonido; facebook.com/ComposersForum).
HEARD IN HAVANA: VIRTUAL SCREENING
Sunday, June 21, 8:00 p.m. EDT

Virtual Juneteenth Celebration with the Great Black Music Ensemble
2020-06-19 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
The Virtual Juneteenth Celebration is a collaboration between the Old Town School of Folk Music, The AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), and Live the Spirit Residency. The performances will commemorate Juneteenth, the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation and the abolishment of slavery in the United States.
The funds raised will be donated to Chicago Torture Justice Center to address the traumas of police violence and institutionalized racism.
Live the Spirit Residency presents: The Young Masters Directed by Ernest Dawkins
The ensemble, born of a jazz workshop and young artists’ mentoring program features some of the most promising high school and college-aged musicians in Chicago. For this event, they will present a new set of their original compositions.
Featuring: Emil Robinson (guitar), Devin Shaw (piano), Oscar Evely (drums), Micah Collier (bass), Jack Sundstom (bass), Miles Hardemon (trumpet).
The Great Black Music Ensemble
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Inc. (AACM), Great Black Music Ensemble features some of Chicago’s most visionary artists of improvisation and creative music. An intergenerational ensemble ranging in size from three to thirty pieces, the GBME carries on the legacy of creative music on Chicago’s South Side. The AACM first coined the phrase “Great Black Music” to describe its unique direction in music: expressing the excitement of new sounds and rhythms, while invigorating the traditions of black music including funk, reggae, bebop, swing, and African and Caribbean styles. The year 2020 marks the AACM’s 55th anniversary.
In light of the times in our community, we will examine two themes: Tribute to Black Lives Matters and There is Joy in Mudville Tonight.
The Great Black Music Ensemble directed by Ernest Dawkins features: Dee Alexander (vocals), Angel Bat Dawid (clarinet), Taalib Din Ziyad (flute/vocals), Alexis Lombre (piano), Micah Collier (bass), and Frank Morrison (drums). Brass t.b.d.
Additional promotional support provided by American Composers Forum, Spektral Quartet, Ear Taxi Festival, Rebuild Foundation, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.

Juneteenth Roundtable
2020-06-19 11:30 - 12:30 (America/Chicago) | Virtual, United States
Join us on Friday, June 19th for an artist discussion on Juneteenth, its legacy and relevance today. What does Juneteenth mean in the era Black Lives Matter and what does Black liberation look like in 2020. The roundtable will feature: composer and activist, Mankwe Ndosi; host of Trilloquy Podcast, Garrett McQueen; composer and member of PubliQuartet, Jannina Norpoth; composer and vocalist, PaviElle French; and composer, Devon Russell Gray. Register at the link below.
