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 […]
ACF's Study Group opens our staff and board conversations and anti-racism training to our colleagues and friends. For our January study group, we will be discussing Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. Praised by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” the book is a personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a […]
The American Composers Forum (ACF) is proud to announce the culminating event of its two-year partnership with the Chicago-based, internationally-renowned Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and its Great Black Music Ensemble: a concert celebrating the 55th anniversary of AACM, taking place at AACM's long-time partner, the Reva and David Logan Center for […]
ACF’s annual Artist Equity Summit centers music creators and examines themes related to equity that impact the field and beyond. This September 17, we invite you to join us for music, dialogue, and community as we focus on “Lifting Up our Youth.” REGISTER HERE. Highlights: * Learn about the residency Liberation! Lifting up our […]
Immigration, Identity and the Arts The Library’s Executive Director, Saengmany Ratsabout, hosts this discussion group on the oral tradition themes in Thi Bui’s book, The Best We Could Do, and the different forms of art seen as “oral” tradition and history-making. Joining him will be ACF composer and Thai-American, Mary Prescott, Hta Thi, and members […]
Immigration, Identity and the Arts Presented with the Ramsey County Historical Society, Historic Saint Paul and the Minnesota Opera, this event will feature Minnesota author and Hmong-American Kao Kalia Yang to discuss her book, The Song Poet, and her collaboration with Jocelyn Hagen about their opera presented by Minnesota Opera this Spring. For more information about this series, click here. […]
Immigration, Identity and the Arts Hosted by ACF Director of Artist Support, Carolina Heredia, this event will feature Latin American and ACF composer awardees in conversation about documenting the shift in experiences through generations. This event will feature ACF McKnight Visiting Composers J.E. Hernández and Victor Márquez-Barrios. This event will be both live-streamed and in […]
Immigration, Identity and the Arts Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on the experiences of African immigrants in the U.S. through the lenses of music, literature, and Thi Bui's NEA Big Read book, The Best We Could Do. Minnesota author and educator Shannon Gibney will host a dialogue with Nigerian composer-performer Kashimana Ahua — an ACF awardee — and Somali […]
On Feb. 4, experience the world premiere of the first part of Ben Frost's upcoming opera Cold Air Rises, co-presented by American Composers Forum and the Twin Cities-based festival The Great Northern. Drawing upon J.A. Baker’s prophetic 1967 book The Peregrine, Frost presents a choral performance and installation in his new piece. A work in development, […]
On Feb. 4, experience the world premiere of the first part of Ben Frost's upcoming opera Cold Air Rises, co-presented by American Composers Forum and the Twin Cities-based festival The Great Northern. Drawing upon J.A. Baker’s prophetic 1967 book The Peregrine, Frost presents a choral performance and installation in his new piece. A work in development, […]
On Feb. 1, American Composers Forum and the Twin Cities-based festival The Great Northern co-present a talk by Ben Frost. The acclaimed Australian-born/Iceland-based artist will discuss his process of translating J.A. Baker's classic novel The Peregrine into the opera Cold Air Rises, the first part of which will be premiered by the Minneapolis choral ensemble MPLS (imPulse) on […]
Immigration, Identity and the Arts You are invited to join American Composers Forum (ACF) and East Side Freedom Library (ESFL) on Thursday, June 1 at 6:30 pm CT for the culminating event of our "Immigration, Identity, and the Arts" series. Taking place at the Community Hall in the newly-renovated Springboard for the Arts complex in […]