American Composers Forum

JOY OF CHRISTMAS
2021-12-01 - 2021-12-31
Cathedral Choral Society’s esteemed Music Director Steven Fox has renewed his contract with the Cathedral Choral Society through June of 2025. He has served as our Music Director since 2018, and we’re excited about his continued leadership in our upcoming performances and collaborations.
As the pandemic continues to shift, Steven looks forward to honoring the remarkable history of this chorus, while also ushering in innovations that keep CCS at the forefront of choral music. He’ll bring the chorus back to Washington National Cathedral this fall with a season that will feature the annual Joy of Christmas concerts, a concert celebrating the Centenary of Women’s Suffrage with new works by Augusta Read Thomas, Jessie Montgomery and Lisa Bielawa (an innova artist), and a special performance of Verdi’s Requiem honoring the chorus’s 80th anniversary.
Date & Time: December 2021 (More details to be announced)
Stay tune about updates on their website by signing up here.

Music Monday LIVE!
2021-12-06 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Chicago)
The Lewis Prize for Music has teamed up with Save The Music Foundation to host youth-led weekly conversations with today’s music leaders starting on Mondays, October 18, 2021 through December 20, 2021 at 5 PM CT | 3 PM PT
Music Monday LIVE is an exciting opportunity for youth across the United States to connect with music industry professionals, ask questions, and share ideas. This event is open to the public and hosted on INSTAGRAM LIVE.
This 10-week series kicks off with Songwriter and Photographer Teron Beal (@teronbeal) and Xavier Washington (@zaytheartist), youth leader and Development Coordinator at Save The Music Foundation.
If you want to join the conversation, don’t be shy! You’re welcome you to hop on the Live during the Q&A. Next week’s Instagram Live will be hosted on the Save The Music Instagram (@savethemusic).

Jennifer Koh: Bridge to Beethoven
2021-12-06 18:30 - 20:00
Forward-thinking violinist Jennifer Koh is widely admired for her commanding performances of “stirring intensity” (New York Times); she has also promoted inclusivity in classical music by commissioning over 70 new works from a truly diverse range of composers. Here, she expands upon her Bridge to Beethoven project with two world premieres by Daniel Bernard Roumain (commissioned by Music Mondays) and his mentee Deanne Rusnock, alongside Beethoven’s ”Kreutzer” Sonata and his first violin sonata, op. 12, no. 1. With Thomas Sauer, piano.
Date & Time: Monday, December 6, 2021 at 6:30 PM CT | 7:30 PM ET

Learn more here.

PRISM Quartet World Premieres: New Music from Philadelphia (NYC)
2021-12-07 18:30 - 19:30
Credited with more than 300 commissions since its founding, the intrepid PRISM Quartet (Matthew Levy, Timothy McAllister, Zachary Shemon, Taimur Sullivan) presents a program of new and recent works by composers with deep ties to the City of Brotherly Love. The program features world premieres by four extraordinarily talented composition students, each representing one of four eminent music institutions in Philadelphia: Atomic Tangerine and Indigo; Green by Elise Arancio (a NextNotes creator) (Curtis Institute of Music), Spliced Tapes by Brendan McMullen (University of Pennsylvania), Four Short Songs by Gloria Quinn (University of the Arts), and Transgression (Act of Sin) by Sepehr Pirasteh (Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance). All four works were commissioned by the newly-formed Philadelphia Student Composers Project under the direction of Erin Busch.
Date & Time: Sunday, December 07, 2021 at 6:30 PM CT | 7:30 PM ET
Learn more and get tickets here.

ACF Study Group: Davu Seru on Dead King Mother (2018) and Archiving History
2021-12-09 16:00 - 18:00
2020 ACF McKnight awardee and scholar, Davu Seru composed Dead King Mother in 2018 in partnership with Zeitgeist. It was a reflection on the story of “the night of April 4, 1968, [as] news was spreading quickly of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, setting off riots in cities across the nation. Davu’s uncle, Clarence Underwood, upon hearing the news, told his wife, ‘My King is dead.’ He vowed to kill the first white man he found.”
Davu has also been instrumental in archiving the history of the Black community in North Minneapolis through his photo journal Sights, Sounds, Soul: The Twin Cities Through the Lens of Charles Chamblis “a photographic celebration of musicians, artists, and everyday scenes from the Twin Cities African American community of the 1970s and ’80s by a renowned local photographer.”
On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 4:00 PM CT, Davu joins us for our ACF Study Group to discuss the importance of these works and a current archival project with multi-disciplinary artist Seitu Jones focussed on communities in Saint Paul.
Register in advance on zoom here.
If you require an interpreter, closed-captioning, or any other accommodations to fully engage, please contact Laura Krider (lkrider@composersforum, 612.314.9228) at least 48 hours before the event.

Vocal Arts Ensemble of Durham Holiday Concert
2021-12-10 18:30 - 19:30
On Friday, December 10, 2021 at 6:30 PM CT | 7:30 PM ET the Vocal Arts Ensemble invites you to join them for their Christmas holiday concert, “O Holy Night” at First Presbyterian Church, 305 E. Main St, Durham, NC.
This concert features glorious music celebrating the holiday season written by composers such as Franz Biebl, Benjamin Britten, Rene Clausen (a ChoralQuest composer), and John Rutter.
Learn more here.

WELCOME CHRISTMAS 2021
2021-12-11 16:00 - 17:00, 2021-12-11 19:00 - 20:00, 2021-12-12 16:00 - 17:00
Experience the mystery of the season through a mother’s eyes featuring the VocalEssence Chorus, Singers Of This Age, and members of the Ensemble Singers. José Maurício Nunes Garcia’s exquisite setting of the Magnificat (Song of Mary) and selections by B.E. Boykin, Vicente Lusitano, and Zaniaida Robles shine alongside stories from modern day mothers and familiar carols transporting us to a place of deep love, exuberant joy, everlasting hope, and abiding peace felt on that first Christmas morning.
Dates, Times, Locations:
Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 4 PM CT
Plymouth Congregational Church
1919 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 7:30 PM CT
Plymouth Congregational Church
1919 LaSalle Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 4 PM CT
Roseville Lutheran Church, Roseville
1215 Roselawn Avenue W, Roseville, MN
Learn more and get tickets here.

Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal
2021-12-11 16:30 - 17:30
The first live concert in over two years, the Peninsula Women’s Chorus (PWC) celebrates being together with classic choral works interwoven with the ethereal sounds of the harp.
Opening with Alice Parker’s (a ChoralQuest composer) rousing setting of “Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal” followed by Brahms’s first choral work, the lilting “Ave Maria,” PWC presents Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols as a journey, choreographed and staged by local director and choreographer MaryStarr Hope.
Date & Time:

Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 4:30 PM CT | 2:30 PM PT
Friday, December 17, 2021 at 10 PM CT | 8 PM PT

Learn more and get tickets here.

Music of the Unsung America: “An Orchestra Beneath the Stars”
2021-12-11 18:00 - 19:00
The New Canon Chamber Collective presents the music of Margaret Bonds and South Florida Black composer, Michael Dudley, under the stars.

Join the The New Canon Chamber Collective as they finish their inaugural “Music of The Unsung America” season with a concert under the stars featuring the music of Margaret Bonds and South Florida Black composer, Michael Dudley.
Date & Time: Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 6 PM CT | 7 PM ET
Advance tickets are $20 online and $25 at the door
Get tickets on Eventbrite here.
American Composers Forum (ACF) has offered creative and administrative support for the development and launch of the full Music of the Unsung America series over the course of this past year through its ACF | connect program.
This performance is made possible with funding from the John S. and James L Knight Foundation and ACF| Connect
And partnership with the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center

Angelic Voices
2021-12-11 18:00 - 19:00
Hear the sounds of angels this holiday season by attending the Young Women’s Choral Projects Holiday Showcase where all four of our choruses perform solo and together in music of the season! The heavenly voices will soar with music by Britten, Rachmaninoff, Betinis, Thompson, Kaulkin, Abbie Betinis (a McKnight fellow and a ChoralQuest composer) and more. Treat yourself to this uplifting holiday tradition.
Date & Time: Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 6 PM CT | 4 PM PT
Get tickets here.

The Pasadena Chorale presents "GIVEN."
2021-12-11 21:30 - 22:30
On Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 9:30 PM CT | 7:30 PM PT Pasadena Chorale presents “Given” at the First United Methodist Church of Pasadena. Featuring The Ballad of the Brown King by Black American composer Margaret Bonds, Christmas selections from Handel’s Messiah, and other holiday goodies. Accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra.
Masks required, and proof of vaccination for those 12 and older (and encouraged for others), with attendance capped at half capacity.
“Listen First, Then Give” tickets and further information available at here.

HAILSTORK, HOLIDAY, & A LITTLE HALLELUJAH
2021-12-12 15:00 - 17:00
Join Fairfield County Chorale (FCC) and tenor Anthony P. McGlaun this upcoming holiday season as we gather together for the first time since March 2020 to offer our holiday favorites – some old, some new, some unexpected. With so much to honor and remember, FCC begins with Mendelssohn’s sacred cantata Verleih uns Frieden, a heartfelt plea to ‘Grant us peace.’
FCC is fortunate and honored to participate in the birthday celebration of Chorale friend and composer Dr. Adolphus Hailstork (a BandQuest composer), who turns 80 this year. (And who will be visiting in person!) Born in Rochester and educated in New York and Michigan, Dr. Hailstork, whose current composition tally tops 300, is an heir to the midcentury American style, writing vibrant forward-looking pieces threaded with internal emotion. He has written so many pieces in so many styles that his work is impossible to pigeonhole, getting inspiration from the sacred, the spiritual, contemporary events, and the other arts. His commitment to cross-fertilization is very much in keeping with FCC’s two online performances from last year.
Date & Time: Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 3 PM CT | 4 PM ET
Learn more and get tickets here.
