ACF | connect - American Composers Forum

About
Overview
Guidelines
Past Participants

ACF CONNECT
Launched in 2017, ACF | connect provides opportunities for composers to build relationships with leading American ensembles to create new work, reach new audiences, and engage with new communities. Past partnerships include the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (PNME), Roomful of Teeth, The Great Black Music Ensemble: An Ensemble of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians™ (AACM). Through this program, composers are offered competitive commission fees, and have significant time to both work with performers and participate in learning/networking opportunities with industry professionals. Ensembles are able to connect to a broader composer community and invite applicants from a national call. Consistent with the mission of the American Composers Forum, the program supports meaningful, long-lasting connections between composers, performers, audiences, and the local community where the ensemble is based. The program intentionally supports a diversity of voices and music to advance creative musical expression as a core value of a global society. ACF | connect ensures a vibrant future for composers and their work by supporting their vision and creativity, and by pairing them with performers and audiences in traditional and innovative spaces and media.

2023 ACF | connect

For the 2023 ACF | connect program we are partnering with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM). ACF partners with GLFCAM for its pilot program that will create more opportunities for composers and performers to collaborate throughout the music creation process.

Founded in 2017 by internationally acclaimed composer and pianist Gabriela Lena Frank, GLFCAM helps composers of any aesthetic and demographic, and from emerging through mid-career levels, to develop self-determined 21st century lives. GLFCAM’s mission centers on the creative habit, community, and eco-citizenship, forming years-long relationships with composers. As a result, composers are provided a rich array of opportunities such as collaborating on new works with renowned performer-mentors; taking online classes and practicums; composing large scale symphonies under fair commission rates with readings of the work-in-progress; teaching in youth music programs in underserved rural areas; participating in a multi-year peer-supported study group on climate intelligence and the arts; and becoming skilled communicators – cultural witnesses – in both spoken and written word. GLFCAM alumni are leading composers in the international music fields as well as teachers and professors, non-profit administrators, therapists, hospice workers, and civic volunteers.

The American Composers Forum encourages applicants from the full range of musical approaches and perspectives, and is committed to supporting a diverse pool of artists whose work demonstrates strong artistic merit. Accordingly, awards for our programs will represent, as far as possible, artists and projects that are diverse in genre, gender, race, ethnicity, and geography.

2023 ACF | connect Participants

American Composers Forum’s ACF | connect program is made possible with the outstanding generosity of the following individuals: Jane Anfinson, Thomas Arneson, Suzanne Asher, Carol Barnett, Pearl and Bob Bergad, Margee and Will Bracken, Karen Brooks, Richard Cisek and Kay Fredericks, Dee Ann and Kent Crossley, Julia W. Dayton, C. Lee Essrig, Rosemary & David Good Family Foundation, Katherine Goodale, Jeff and Hyun Mee Graves, Carol Heen, Steve Heitzeg and Gwen Pappas, Kathleen Henschel and John Dewes, Linda and Jack Hoeschler, Leaetta Hough and Bob Muschewske, Sam Hsu and Sally Cheng, Hella Mears Hueg Estate Gift, Thelma Hunter Estate Gift, John and Ruth Huss, George Frederick Jewett Foundation East, Art and Martha Kaemmer, Jon Lewis and Lisa Merklin, Mike and Kay McCarthy, Greg McNeely, Alfred and Ann Moore, Louis and Gloria Nuechterlein, John Nuechterlein and Dan Monson, John and Debbie Orenstein, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation in memory of Thelma Hunter, David and Judy Ranheim, Denice Rippentrop, Vanessa Rose, Bill and Susan Sands, Gale Sharpe, Doug and Kathy Skor, Dan and Ellie Thomas, Stephen and Jayne Usery, Kathleen van Bergen, Janika Vandervelde, Jim Wafler, and Margaret and Angus Wurtele.

An extension of the Academy’s existing Bahlest Eeble Readings, the weeklong residency in Minnesota will host composers Erin Busch, Ivette Rodriguez, Liza Sobel, and Sakari Vanderveer; performer-mentors Ráyo Furuta (flute), Amr Selim (French horn), and Christine Lamprea (cello); as well as composer Gabriela Lena Frank and staff.

“We are excited to embark on our first satellite partnership with the pioneering service organization — American Composers Forum — to host Cycle 16 of our Bahlest Eeble Readings,” shares the Academy’s founder, Gabriela Lena Frank. “As part of our climate commitment, our satellite partnerships will allow us to reach different parts of the country while lowering our carbon footprint. As ACF is a longtime champion of composers and the communities that composers connect to, we are grateful to ACF for providing a home for the Academy in the mid-America region this coming spring.”

The current cohort of artists began their cycle last September and will continue with the program over the course of more than a year before moving to the Academy’s extensive alumni programs. The upcoming residency will take place at the Belwin Conservancy in Afton, MN, and will be the first time the group meets in-person. From April 29 to May 3, the artists will conduct readings and help develop the composers’ works-in-progress, while sharing meals, music, and stories. Recordings of the readings will enable the composers to keep developing their works before the final performances in November 2023.