American Composers Forum

Summer Festival X - "Beethoven and Friends"
2021-08-07 16:00 - 17:00, 2021-08-10 19:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago)
Brightmusic returns to Live Concerts with ‘Beethoven and Friends’ – Summer Festival concert series mixes old and new. Join the four days of concerts. See each date and time in the program below:

Program:

Concert No. 1 – Tuesday, August 3, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT
Concert No. 2 – Thursday, August 5, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT

Jennifer Higdon (a BandQuest and ChoralQuest composer), Piano Trio

​Concert No. 3 – Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 4 PM CT (reception to follow) The Mae Ruth Swanson Memorial Concert
Concert No. 4 – Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT

Libby Larsen (ACF’s co-founder and a BandQuest composer), Slang for Clarinet, Violin and Piano

Musicians
Gregory Lee, Violin
Katrin Stamatis, Violin
Shaohong “Betty” Yuan, Viola
Jonathan Ruck, Cello
Parthena Owens, Flute
Lisa Harvey-Reed, Oboe
Chad Burrow, Clarinet
Kate Pritchett, Horn
Rodney Ackmann, Bassoon
Amy I-Lin Cheng, Piano
Heather Conner, Piano
Jill Jantzen, Piano

Admission:

$20 per concert (students and active-duty military free with ID)

$50 for a Summer Festival Pass to all concerts – festival passes are not required for 2019-20 subscribers
Learn more and get tickets here.

Inception Orchestra Virtual Celebration & Concert
2021-08-07 18:00 - 19:00
Celebrate Inception Orchestra Young Composers of the March 2020-Aug 2021 class! Meet the composers and their mentors. Showcases, bloopers, behind-the-scenes and most importantly, their music.
Spotlights with the professional musicians who worked with our students. Spend time with our partners, ASMAC and the Classical Sax Project.
Sit in on a featured master class which will resonate with everyone — composers or not.
And discover what’s next for Inception and you and your kids can be involved.
Date & Time: Saturday, August 7, 2021, at 6 PM CDT
Register for free here.

The Inception Orchestra Young Composers Celebration
2021-08-07 18:00 - 19:00
Help the Los Angeles Inception Orchestra celebrate their young composers of the March 2020-Aug 2021 class! Meet the composers and their mentors. Showcases, bloopers, behind-the-scenes and most importantly, their music.
Date & Time: Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 6 PM CT | 7 PM ET
Register for free here.

Young Women Composers Camp 2021 - World Premieres Concerts
2021-08-07 18:30 - 19:30, 2021-08-08 13:00 - 14:00
Don’t miss Young Women Composers Camp’s world premieres concerts featuring works composed by the 2021 members of the camp! Their cohort this year spans across the United States, as well as Canada, Asia, Europe, and the UK, all of whom have composed new works for the andPlay Duo, Mazumal Duo, or Peridot Duo. Each concert will feature newly-composed works for each of these three incredible ensembles.
Dates & Times:

Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 6:30 PM CT | 7:30 PM ET
Sunday, August 8, 2021 at 1 PM CT | 2 PM ET

The Young Women Composers Camp amplifies the voices of young female and nonbinary composers by providing them with affordable, high-level coursework, resources, mentors, and a supportive community full of like-minded peers. This year, our program featured core composition faculty members inti figgis-vizueta, Flannery Cunningham, Bahar Royaee, and Tonia Ko; as well as guest instructors Natacha Diels, Courtney Bryan, Adam Vidiksis, Dale Trumbore, Angélica Negrón, Jessica Rae Huber, Alexandra Gardner, and Annika Socolofsky.
Can’t make the livestream? Not a problem – the concert videos will be archived on their Facebook and Youtube pages, so you can watch again at a later date.
Read more about our program and values at www.youngwomencomposers.org.

Elizabeth Cree
2021-08-07 22:00 - 23:00
Set in a bawdy Victorian music hall, Elizabeth Cree by Kevin Puts (a BandQuest composer and the Director of the MNOrch Composer Institute) is a psychological thriller in which an abused and impoverished woman finally finds a family in a troupe of misfit performers. The action moves with kaleidoscopic energy and wit as the pulitzer- prize winning creators of Silent Night (seen on Great Performances) collaborate again for this intense new opera.
Learn more on West Edge Opera‘s website.
Performance Dates:
Sunday, July 25, 2021 – 7pm CDT | 5pm PDT
Friday, July 30, 2021 – 10pm CDT | 8pm PDT
Saturday, August 7, 2021 – 10pm CDT | 8pm PDT

The Philadelphians in Concert on WRTI
2021-08-08 12:00 - 13:00, 2021-08-09 18:00 - 19:00
Tune in on Sunday, August 8, 2021 at 12 PM CT | 1 PM ET on Philadelphia’s radio station WRTI 90.1, and on Monday, August 9, 2021 at 6 PM CT | 7 PM on WRTI HD-2, for a rebroadcast of a concert from The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2014-2015 season.
Carol Jantsch, principal tuba of the orchestra since 2006, stood front and center on the Verizon Hall stage to perform as soloist in a work written for her – Michael Daugherty’s (a BandQuest composer) Reflections on the Mississippi.
Learn more here.

Neave Trio Performs Music by Ravel at the Bard Music Festival - In-Person and Livestreamed Online
2021-08-08 12:00 - 14:00
The Boston-based Neave Trio will perform on two concerts presented as part of Bard Music Festival’s 12-concert series, Nadia Boulanger and Her World. On Program Two, “Contemporaries and Colleagues,” August 7 at 1pm, Neave Trio will perform Ravel’s Piano Trio on a concert which traces Nadia Boulanger’s early musical relationships.
On Saturday, August 7, 2021 and Sunday, August 8, 2021 at 12 PM CT | 1 PM ET, the Boston-based Neave Trio will perform on two concerts presented as part of Bard Music Festival’s 12-concert series, Nadia Boulanger and Her World. The concerts will be performed for a live audience at the Fisher Center’s LUMA Theater at Bard College (Manor Ave.) and livestreamed online.
The Bard Music Festival returns for its 31st season with an exploration of the life and work of Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979), the pioneering Parisian pedagogue, composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and indomitable personality who shaped more than a generation of American musicians. Through a series of themed concert programs, lectures, and panel discussions, Nadia Boulanger and Her World pays tribute to one of the most important female figures in the history of classical music.
On Program Two, “Contemporaries and Colleagues,” August 7 at 1pm, Neave Trio will perform Ravel’s Piano Trio on a concert which traces Nadia Boulanger’s early musical relationships. The program couples songs she wrote in her teens with chamber works by then-preeminent Debussy, her composition teacher Fauré, and renowned classmates George Enescu and Ravel. Ravel composed his only piano trio after nearly six years of sketching and planning. But following the beginning of World War I in 1914, Ravel was motivated to quickly complete the work before enlisting in the French army. In a letter to Igor Stravinsky, he wrote, “The idea that I should be leaving at once made me get through five months’ work in five weeks! My Trio is finished.”
Complete program and ticket information can be found here.

Del Mar International Composers Symposium 2021
2021-08-08 19:30 - 20:30, 2021-08-10 21:00 - 22:00
Guest composers this year include rising new music stars Nicholas Benavides, Quinn Mason ( a NextNotes creator), Polina Nazaykinskaya, Juri Seo and Joseph Sowa. Their compositions will be performed by the Hausmann Quartet (ensemble in residence at SDSU), soprano Tasha Koontz (frequent soloist with both the San Diego Opera and the San Diego Symphony), and pianist Peter Walsh, who is highly in demand as a recitalist and pianist for opera companies including the LA Opera and Houston Grand Opera.
Date & Time:

Sunday, August 8, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT | 5:30 PM PT
Tuesday, august 10, 2021 at 9 PM CT | 7 PM PT

To reserve free tickets for both events, visit their website here.

ACF Music Creator Mixer at New Music Gathering
2021-08-10 15:00 - 16:00 | American Composers Forum Office, 75 West 5th Street, Suite 522, Saint Paul, MN, 55102-1439, United States
It’s been so long since we have had friends in our offices! We’ve seen your faces on our computers screens but nothing beats that face-to-face interaction. In the past year so much has changed for many of us and this is certainly true at ACF. There are new names, new programs, and new initiatives. We will open our doors again as we co-host the 2021 New Music Gathering in downtown Saint Paul at and around our offices in Landmark Center. We invite you to join us on Friday, August 13th at 3 pm CT for a gathering inside the Gathering. You can enjoy snacks and drinks with your fellow creators, learn about what is new at ACF from members of the ACF staff, pick up some ACF, innova recordings, and I CARE IF YOU LISTEN swag, and share with us how we can best support you and advocate for you. Out of concern for all members of our community, masks will be required inside the ACF offices.
We look forward to seeing you!
ACF Music Creator Mixer at New Music Gathering
Friday, August 13th from 3-4 PM
Landmark Center, 75 West 5th Street, Suite 522, Saint Paul, MN, 55102
See the full schedule of events for New Music Gathering in downtown Saint Paul here: New Music Gathering – NMG2021

Rain and Red Clay
2021-08-11 19:30 - 21:00
For many of us, the land of our ancestors holds a special power, That fascination drew the Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, to the music and culture of Black American, where his forebears had been enslaved. This program presents Colderidge-Taylor’s luscious Clarinet Quintet alongside two of his formative influences, the European tradition of composers like Brahms and Black American music. The latter is represented by Valerie Colemean‘s ‘Red Clay and Mississsippi Delta,’ which uses the blues to create a classical woodwind quintet with a southern accent.
Date & Time: Wednesday August 11, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT
Learn more here.

New Music Gathering 2021
2021-08-12 08:00 - 22:00, 2021-08-13 08:00 - 22:00, 2021-08-14 08:00 - 22:00, 2021-08-15 08:00 - 22:00, 2021-08-16 08:00 - 22:00, 2021-08-17 08:00 - 22:00, 2021-08-18 08:00 - 22:00 | Landmark Center, 75 West 5th Street, Saint Paul, MN, United States
New Music Gathering 2021, co-presented by American Composers Forum, New Music USA will be in Downtown St. Paul, Minnesota on August 12-14, as well as online from August 12-18.
Our theme this year is “Money?” – and yes we mean that question mark! Given the economic uncertainty of the arts right now, by naming this theme we invite our applicants to raise questions, offer suggestions, and share experiences that help us sustainably reimagine our creative community together!
To register for NMG2021, visit our passes page!
To view a full schedule of NMG2021 events with location info, visit our schedule page!
Below, find info on the wonderful folks who will make up NMG2021!

OUR COVID-19 PLAN
Weird year, huh? And Delta’s just making it weirder. Please know that ALL of our events are being streamed online (the schedule page will have links the day of the event). If you’re going to be with us in St Paul, know that the stream will be playing live in an open tent outdoors on Landmark Plaza on the 12th and 13th, and in Mears Park on the 14th. We’re also taking temperatures and requiring masks be worn at ALL indoor events.
On a more fun note, we’ll be using Gather.town this year for online hangs after events. If you don’t know this platform, think of it as a combination of your favorite 2D video game from the 80’s and a social video chatting platform. Come and chat with the organizers and artists and presenters and each other! More info on that in a week or so..
Access to all streaming events and gather.town hangs is free with registration – why not register right now?
We know gathering is trickier than ever right now but, whether corporeally or cybernetically, gathering to celebrate great music feels more critical and sustaining than ever. We hope you’ll join us!

Michael Harrison performs Indian Ragas & Compositions for Piano & Tabla, with Nitin Mitta
2021-08-12 19:30 - 20:30
Composer, pianist and vocalist Michael Harrison will offer his debut performance of traditional Indian classical music, which he has adapted for piano with tabla accompaniment, presented by Drive East by Navatman. Celebrated tabla player Nitin Mitta will accompany him. Harrison will also perform his own original compositions which are based on the traditional ragas (melodic archetypes) and talas (rhythmic cycles) of Indian classical music. The concert will be offered both in person at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club for a fully vaccinated audience, as well as live online with the video being available for 24 hours after the performance.
Although this is his first performance as a featured piano soloist in an Indian classical concert, Michael Harrison has performed Indian classical music for decades as a vocal (and occasionally piano) accompanist with his Indian music gurus Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan and Terry Riley.
Date & Time: Thursday, August 12, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT | 8:30 PM ET
Harrison’s concert on August 12 will feature the live premiere performance of his piece Etude in Raga Bhimpalasi, which is included on his new album Seven Sacred Names (Cantaloupe Music). Seven Sacred Names was in the top ten albums on the Billboard Classical Chart upon release; The New Yorker described the album as, “music of positively intoxicating beauty.”
Learn more and get tickets here.

Shandelee Music Festival: An Evening of Chamber Music featuring Neave Trio
2021-08-14 19:00 - 21:00
On Saturday, August 14, 2021 at 7 PM CT | 8 PM ET, the Boston-based Neave Trio will perform a concert presented as part of the Shandelee Music Festival. The concert will be performed for a live audience at the Shandelee Music Festival’s Sunset Concert Pavilion and livestreamed online.
Tickets are available for purchase here, and instructions to watch the stream will be sent to registrants via email.
Neave Trio’s program includes Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor, Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, and Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8. Neave will record this masterful program on Chandos Records during the 2021-2022 season.
Rachmaninov was inspired to write Trio élégiaque No. 1 after hearing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A Minor, which was composed in memory of Tchaikovsky’s deceased friend Nicolai Rubinstein. Though Rachmaninov composed his trio when he was just 19 years old, it is completely characteristic of his compositional brilliance which would continue to develop in his adult life. Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 was the first of the composer’s chamber works to be published. The work is notably grand in both scope and sound, often emulating an orchestral symphony within its organization and harmonic structure. Ravel composed his only piano trio after nearly six years of sketching and planning. But following the beginning of World War I in 1914, Ravel was motivated to quickly complete the work before enlisting in the French army. In a letter to Igor Stravinsky, he wrote, “The idea that I should be leaving at once made me get through five months’ work in five weeks! My Trio is finished.”

Muzzy Ridge Concerts presents: Duo Coquelicot
2021-08-15 14:00 - 16:00
Composer Robert Sirota launches the inaugural season of a new concert series, Muzzy Ridge Concerts, with two performances in August. Both concerts will take place in the studio where Sirota has composed much of his music over the past 35 years, in Searsmont, Maine. Concerts will be approximately 60 minutes long, without intermission. Indoor seating is limited to 40 vaccinated patrons, with some additional outdoor seating. The address and directions will be supplied to ticket buyers.
On Sunday, August 15, 2021 at 2 PM CT | 3 PM ET, Duo Coquelicot – Grammy-nominated flutist Carol Wincenc (“Queen of the flute,” New York Magazine), and Boston-based Parisian cellist Velléda Miragias, with Sirota at the piano – will give a concert featuring a wide-ranging program that includes the music of J.S. Bach, Haydn, Fauré, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, and Villa-Lobos, plus a new work by Meira Warschauer. The duo will also perform Robert Sirota’s 2016 piece, Broken Places.
Robert Sirota says of Muzzy Ridge Concerts:
“Since 1986, we have owned a home on a 10–acre property in the town of Searsmont in central coastal Maine: a landscape of small farms, low-bush blueberry fields, and woodlots inhabited by deer, wild turkeys, numerous species of birds, and the occasional moose, black bear, and coyote. Our home sits on a gently sloping parcel on the eastern side of Muzzy Ridge. It is in this setting that I have composed many works in the past 35 years. About ten years ago, we built an 800-square-foot studio onto our house: the perfect intimate venue for chamber music. You are invited to join us for two special events inaugurating Muzzy Ridge Concerts. We hope that these two Sunday afternoons in August will be the start of annual celebrations of chamber music in this place we love.”
Learn more here.
Get tickets here.

Watermark
2021-08-18 19:30 - 21:00
The imprint of the past carries on in the work of composers today. This chamber orchestra program features compositions which look to the past with fresh eyes, from the dazzling baroque-inspired counterpoint of Steve Reich‘s Duet to Caroline Shaw‘s ‘Watermark,’ which expertly weaves strands and patches from Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. As a finale, Sergei Prokfiev‘s first symphony presents a reinvention of the music of Mozart- but with a distinctive twist!

Date & Time: Wednesday August 18, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT
Learn more here.

Arts in the Park
2021-08-21 14:00 - 16:00
Join Riverwalk Theatre, Happendance, Lansing Children’s Choir, The Curtainless Theatre and Habibi Dancers at the Salt Shed at Adado Park in Downtown Lansing from Saturday, August 21, 2021 – Sunday, August 22, 2021 at 2 PM CT | 3 PM ET for performances reflecting a message of hope, optimism and reopening. The festival will showcase singing, dancing, poetry and dramatic readings in 12 performances.
The show will feature Steve Reich’s “Clapping Music,” George Gerswhwin’s “’S Wonderful,” Stuart Saunders Smiths’ “Songs I-IX for Actor Percussionist,” Gerswhin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” Michael Colgrass’ (a BandQuest composer) “Three Allegro Drum Duets” and Meredith Wilson’s “’Til There Was You.”

Admission is free, but donations are appreciated and will support the participating organizations. Learn more at riverwalktheatre.com or email tjferris49@gmail.com with questions.

Tribute to the Earth
2021-08-21 19:30 - 21:00
The “Pago a la Tierra” (tribute to the earth) is an ancient Andean ritual of thanksgiving for nature’s bounty. In this spirit, the Lakes Area Music Festival closes its season with a celebration of the gifts we have all enjoyed. A world premier by Peruvian-American composer Jimmy López is followed by the Second Symphony of Jean Sibelius, a work inspired by the Apennine mountains of Italy.
Date & Time: Saturday, August 21, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT
Learn more here.

Jupiter String Quartet
2021-08-22 14:00 - 15:00
The Jupiter String Quartet (Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violinists; Liz Freivogel, viola; and Daniel McDonough, cello) makes its debut at Music Mountain on Saturday, August 22, 2021 at 2 PM CT | 3 PM ET, performing a program with works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Florence Price, Felix Mendelssohn, and Judd Greenstein.
The concert will be presented for a live, in-person audience and as a free livestream online, available to watch at www.musicmountain.org in real time and for one week after the performance.
Get tickets here.
Program
FANNY MENDELSSOHN HENSEL String Quartet in E Flat Major
FLORENCE PRICE Five Folksongs in Counterpoint
FELIX MENDELSSOHN String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 80
JUDD GREENSTEIN (a ChoralQuest composer) Four on the Floor

Music From Home - Kim Davenport - Lakewold Gardens
2021-08-22 14:00 - 15:00
Lakewold Gardens’ Music from Home in-person concerts are back!
Pianist, Kim Davenport is the featured performer on Sunday, August 22, 2021 at 2 PM CT | 3 PM ET. Kim will play music from Chevalier de Saint-George, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Jasmine Barnes, Adolphus Hailstork (a BandQuest composer), Jonathan Bailey Holland, Robert Nathaniel Dett, William Grant Still & Margaret Bonds. Kim will be joined by Flutist Drew Shipman, and art will be on display by Laurie Davenport. Feel free to come early and roam and explore the gardens before the show and as always there will be complimentary refreshments available!
Get tickets here.

Muzzy Ridge Concerts presents: Laurie Carney, violin & David Friend, piano
2021-08-22 14:00 - 16:00
Composer Robert Sirota launches the inaugural season of a new concert series, Muzzy Ridge Concerts, with two performances in August. Both concerts will take place in the studio where Sirota has composed much of his music over the past 35 years, in Searsmont, Maine. Concerts will be approximately 60 minutes long, without intermission. Indoor seating is limited to 40 vaccinated patrons, with some additional outdoor seating. The address and directions will be supplied to ticket buyers.
On Sunday, August 22, 2021 at 2 PM CT | 3 PM ET, violinist Laurie Carney and pianist David Friend perform Messiaen’s Thème et variations, Prokoviev’s Five Melodies, Op. 35, Kodály’s Adagio, and Sirota’s Summermusic from 2000. A founding member of the American String Quartet, Laurie Carney holds the distinction of performing quartets longer than any other woman in this elite field. A fearless performer, critics have described David Friend’s performances as “astonishingly compelling” (The Washington Post).
Robert Sirota says of Muzzy Ridge Concerts: “Since 1986, we have owned a home on a 10–acre property in the town of Searsmont in central coastal Maine: a landscape of small farms, low-bush blueberry fields, and woodlots inhabited by deer, wild turkeys, numerous species of birds, and the occasional moose, black bear, and coyote. Our home sits on a gently sloping parcel on the eastern side of Muzzy Ridge. It is in this setting that I have composed many works in the past 35 years. About ten years ago, we built an 800-square-foot studio onto our house: the perfect intimate venue for chamber music. You are invited to join us for two special events inaugurating Muzzy Ridge Concerts. We hope that these two Sunday afternoons in August will be the start of annual celebrations of chamber music in this place we love.”
Learn more here.
Get tickets here.
