ACF’s 2016 summer development intern, Henry Dykstal, conducted a series of interviews with our incoming cohort of board members. Meet Asha Srinivasan! After reading her interview, learn even more about […]
Continue ReadingACF’s 2016 summer development intern, Henry Dykstal, conducted a series of interviews with our incoming cohort of board members. First up is Chris Osgood. After reading his interview, learn even […]
Continue Readingwritten by Tim Hansen In the email ping-pong prefacing this article, JFund awardee Sean Harold warned me that his biographies “tended to be heavy on the sarcasm and light on […]
Continue ReadingSAINT PAUL, MN (August 24, 2016) – The American Composers Forum is pleased to announce the next cycle of Faith Partnerscomposers-in-residence. This nationally recognized program brings together composers and communities […]
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Composer Paul John Rudoi and poet Brian Laidlaw met weekly over dinner with the children and families at the Twin Cities Ronald McDonald House. Premiered by the Minnesota Boychoir in May 2016, their beautiful work “My […]
Continue Readingwritten by Tim Hansen The Vietnam War. An international clash of ideologies fought in the theatre of a small southeast Asian country. And it sucked. For everyone. Scarcely a person […]
Continue Readingwritten by Tim Hansen A couple of years ago Californian-based composer Saad Haddad was accepted into the prestigious masters program at Juilliard. Like countless young composers before him, it would […]
Continue Readingwritten 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 […]
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The invitation to showcase American composers at the Havana Contemporary Music Festival was, quite frankly, one of the most extraordinary opportunities in the history of ACF. We have grown measurably […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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How did Spektral¹s involvement in Behind the Wallpaper come about, and is there anything to keep in mind or listen for when we hear it February 23? Behind the Wallpaper came about […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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. […]
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Tim Hansen As a teenager, Masatora Goya was more interested in playing rugby than the piano. Born in Malaysia but raised in Japan, Masatora says his home life “wasn’t […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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