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The Pottstown Symphony Orchestra will collaborate with the Landis and Co. Theatre of Magic

The Philadelphia Music Project has awarded 18 grants totaling $794,000 this year to support area music projects. The awards range from $5,000 to $80,000 and seek to “engender excellence in performance, creativity in programming and provide recipients with the means to elevate their artistic level” regardless of genre. The program is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the Settlement Music School. To date, the PMP has underwritten 130 projects totaling $5,259,650 in grant dollars since 1989.

PMP Director Matthew Levy says he was most struck by the degree of diversity among the applications. This year, “almost all genres of music are represented, in a way that’s balanced and proportional to their degree of presence in the community,” he explains. “I think it really reflects the vitality of Philadelphia as a music center.”

The grant applications are evaluated on three fronts: artistic excellence (the qualifications of the participating artists, evidence of artistic expansion on the part of the organization, and the degree to which the project is programmatically innovative), the impact of the project on the performing organization as well as on the community, and the perceived ability of the organization to implement the project based on budgetary and logistical considerations. When proposals are evaluated, the organization’s mission statement is carefully considered, Levy says, allowing for “a great deal of integrity and fairness in terms of looking at the kinds of projects that artistically stretch organizations in the contexts of what their mission and goals are.”

Relâche will use the grant to commission and perform five new pieces

The pool of applications is drawn annually from the greater Philadelphia area. In this round, five of the awards went to first-time recipients of PMP grants. The program provides funding in the full amount requested by the organization so that the proposed project can be realized as originally conceived.

According to the PMP, this year’s awards will support 224 events including the commissioning and performance of seven new works; world premieres of an additional four works; forty radio broadcasts; sixty-five residency/educational activities; one recording; and over one hundred performances encompassing ten chamber music, forty orchestra, six choral, ten world music, fifteen jazz, one early music, and fourteen new music programs, as well as two operas and three musical theater productions.

A recent study completed by PMP shows that in the organization’s 11-year history, it has contributed to the commissioning of 67 composers, including William Bolcom, Aaron Jay Kernis, Richard Danielpour, and Gunther Schuller, in addition to supporting composers within the community such as Jennifer Higdon and Richard Wernick. Proud of the role PMP has played in bringing new music to the Philadelphia community, Levy explains, “We are interested in supporting creativity, and certainly commissioning projects fit that mission.”

The Scrap Arts Group performing at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival

The sense of community fostered by PMP has significantly increased since the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia took over the administration of the program from New York-based Meet The Composer in 1997.

The move, Levy says, has made the program more accessible to participating organizations. “We’re really at the disposal of the music community and invite them to maintain an open dialogue with us,” he says. In addition, Levy points to the development of local seminars, an annual conference, and smaller professional development grants that expose recipients to new ideas and enable them to network within the community.

Evaluating the program over the last decade, Levy says that the grants have been “integral to moving the music community in a direction which enables greater risk taking and programmatic ingenuity. That’s one of our primary goals, to spark that desire in organizations to expand and reach out into a new area.”

The 2001 PMP awards go to:

The American Music Theater Festival/Prince Music Theater, $80,000, for the first major stage revival of the Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin/Moss Hart musical Lady in the Dark.

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, $80,000, to maintain the center’s reputation for cutting-edge presentations of many types of music.

Astral Artistic Services, $27,000, to support collaborations between area ensembles and two chamber music programs.

Choral Arts Society, $25,000, to support a concert of symphonic choral music at the Kimmel Center in honor of the Society’s 20th anniversary.

Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, $60,000, to fund an artistic enhancement project during their transition to the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

International House of Philadelphia, $15,000, to support concerts by Portuguese fado singer Dulce Pontes and West African griot Kandia Kouyate.

Mann Center for the Performing Arts, $80,000, to support the Center’s 25th anniversary season.

Opera Company of Philadelphia, $64,000, for a production of Jacques Offenbach’s La Pericole.

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, $40,000, to strengthen and expand the Society’s Special Events Series including world premieres of works by Philadelphia composers Richard Wernick and James Primosch and Australian composer Mary Finsterer.

Philadelphia Folklore Project, $60,000 over two years to fund the Women’s Traditional Music Project.

Philadelphia Fringe Festival, $30,000, for seven musical presentations at the 2001 Fringe Festival.

Philadelphia Singers, $30,000 to fund a concert of <I>a capella</I> choral works by Rachmaninoff, Tavener, and Tallis.

Pottstown Symphony, $30,000, for a collaboration project with Landis & Company Theatre of Magic that will introduce audience members to musical concepts.

Relache, $30,000, to commission and present five new works from composers Kitty Brazelton, Shafer Mahoney, Christian Marclay, Matthew Shipp, and Menachem Wiesenberg.

SRUTI, The India Music and Dance Society, $5,000, to support concerts by South Indian clarinetist A.K.C. Natarajan.

Strings for Schools, $30,000, to present the Billy Taylor Trio with jazz violinist John Blake, Jr. in concerts and workshops.

University for the Arts, $28,000, to fund guest residencies with the University Big Band.

WHYY, $80,000, to fund Sunday Showcases, broadcasting the Philadelphia Orchestra 2001-02 season concerts on WHYY 91FM

This year’s selection panel included Anthony Fogg, Artistic Administrator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (panel chair); William Bolcom, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and pianist, Greg Osby, saxophonist, Blue Note recording artist and composer; Beverly Simmons, Director of Early Music America; Daniel Washington, baritone and Assistant Dean at the University of Michigan School of Music; Robert Garfias, Ethnomusicologist and Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine; Pebbles Wadsworth, Director, University of Texas at Austin Performing Arts Center; and Mark Shapiro, Artistic Director of Cantori New York.

Artist-in-Residence for the Institute for Advanced Study, Jon Magnussen Photo Courtesy of Jon Mag

Jon Magnussen has been appointed Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. As such, he will lead the annual concert series, introduce new works, and present lectures on new music. Established in 1994, Institute Director Phillip Griffiths explains that the program’s purpose is to have “a musical presence within the Institute community, to have in residence a person whose work could be experienced and appreciated by scholars from all disciplines. Equally, we wanted to provide the opportunity for an outstanding performer or composer with strong scholarly interests to pursue his or her art while at the Institute.”

Magnussen has composed music for the concert hall, drama, and dance. He is noted for his work with the José Limón ballet and for pieces that combine acoustic and electronic instruments. His recent critically acclaimed projects include ” The Winged,” a José Limón ballet scored for chamber orchestra, and “Death and Eros,” for amplified cello, flute, percussion, keyboard, vocalist, and MAX/msp (a real time, interactive computer programming environment), which he conducted at UCLA.

Born in Sierra Leone and raised in Hawaii, he holds degrees from Cornell, the Conservatoire National Superieure de Musique de Paris, and the Juilliard School, where he earned his doctorate in 1999.

Magnussen is currently at work on “Psalm,” a new score for the 1967 José Limón ballet written for chorus, chamber orchestra, and baritone. At the Institute, the New York Percussion Quartet will premiere his “Ko’olau Sketches” in October, and two additional works now in progress are already slated for performance later in the season, one for baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist David Breitman, and another, for piano and electronics, which will be performed by pianist and former Institute Artist-in-Residence Robert Taub.

Griffiths hopes Magnussen’s presence within the Institute community will allow “an exploration of the opportunities and challenges facing today’s composers in a changing technological landscape. We are very enthusiastic about having Jon with us at this very important stage in his career.”

Molly Sheridan corresponded by email with Magnussen to find out more about his plans for the residency in addition to asking him a few philosophical questions about being a composer. A transcript of that exchange appears here.

Classical music publisher Universal Edition has partnered with the artist management firm Double M Arts and Events to support, publish, and present the works of contemporary composers that stretch conventional publishing and performance boundaries.

UE President Robert Thompson explains that traditionally, publishing has been limited to what was printable. That seems reasonable until you consider works that utilize sounds not traditionally notated or tapes and video. “Anything that didn’t conform to the norm of a typical 30-minute piece for orchestra, we didn’t know what to do with it,” he says. But at this point “there are a lot of composers who are working in multimedia, composers like Mikel Rouse, Osvaldo Golijov, Philip Glass, John Adams, Steve Reich, whose music doesn’t always come alive on the printed page.” In addition, Thompson explains, many composers are now creating works around unusual instruments or for specific performers. “These are not works you can just send out a score and parts to, so a publisher’s role is somewhat limited in that context. Whereas by combining the best of what a artist management company does with what a publisher does, we can offer the composer much more flexibility.”

Michael Mushalla, president of Double M, and Sue Knussen, formerly education director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, have been appointed artist and promotions representatives for UE. Mary Anne Lewis, executive director of the North Central Louisiana Arts Council, has been named project developer. As such, she will provide grant writing and project development support to artists and composers on the Universal and Double M rosters.

The idea for the partnership, Thompson explains, was born from his experiences producing Golijov’s La Pasión Según San Marcos for the Bach Academy in Stuttgart. Since the project relies on specialized performers, he began to wonder what would happen to the work after its initial performances. He found his answer in Michael Mushalla.

Mushalla was so moved by the piece that he approached Thompson about producing a touring production. The partnership evolved from there. “Our initial contact was just about working on that piece and it was through our time together that we talked about forming a strategic partnership, because we saw how all our activities were dovetailing,” Mushalla explains. As a result of their work, Golijov’s Pasión begins a three-week tour in October 2002 and future projects are already in the planning stages. Since the New York offices of both companies are jointly housed, Thompson says they’ve been able to work very closely, sharing ideas and brainstorming with artists.

Working with an artist management company such as Double M, Thompson says, “allows us much more flexibility in responding to the needs of the composer, so we become kind of the producer. We’re always going to be a traditional publisher, but I think this is something that we’re interested in developing. It’s an exciting area of the business.”

Enthused about the kind of projects the partnership will foster, Mushalla says that fundamentally it represents “a real commitment to new work” on the part of everyone involved. “It seems like the perfect opportunity to bring really exciting artists together and try to get their work [performed] around the world.” The partnership, he notes, will also help secure funding for the projects. “I think what we’re trying to do here is give the artists an opportunity to dream about what it is they’d want to do if given absolute carte blanche, establish a structure where we can make it possible for them to realize their creative wishes. That’s the long-term goal, and that sounds a little warm and fuzzy, but in fact that is the mission.”

In other news, Thompson reports that a partnership with Net4Music to distribute Universal’s catalog on the Internet continues to move forward. The music will be distributed as encrypted Adobe Acrobat files. That was appealing to Universal, Thompson says, because the Acrobat software is popular worldwide and Universal was confident the encryption technology was capable of protecting the music copyright.

“I don’t know that there are a lot of people out there downloading music, but I think in certain cases it fulfills a function,” Thompson says, whether students are using the music for lessons or conductors are using the service to peruse new scores.

In addition, he illustrates that UE has 6,500 works in print, but another 2,000 out of print. Net4Music will allow uninterrupted access to the entire catalog and ultimately “musicians will have a greater library of music from which to program.”

William Grant Still Photo courtesy Carl Fischer Music

The family of the late African-American composer William Grant Still is once again offering free recordings of his works to radio stations around the world. An ongoing project, the $68,000 needed to fund the purchase of CDs for this year’s campaign was raised from sheet music sales and performances of Still’s music that have taken place over the last year.

“The pieces that are played in our concerts halls and that are broadcast on the airwaves are often selected from a narrow field, while non-European and non-folk elements are ignored,” explains his daughter, Judith Anne Still, who works with Still’s three other children and three grandchildren on the CD project. “We want the public to discover the beauty and value of music that is American, multicultural, and modern.”

Ms. Still feels that the airwaves are the best way to advocate for her father’s music. “I think that William Grant Still gets a better response than other American composers from radio airplay. So that’s the way we’ve decided to go.” The stations that have participated in the project, she says, have found that “they get several calls whenever they play some special Still like the Afro-American Symphony. [Listeners] will call up and ask where to get the recording.” In addition, she has found that radio airplay can lead to live performances of the works. Oftentimes, she says, “a conductor will hear a piece on the radio and start calling around to see where he can get it.”

By all indications, the work of the Still family is making an impact. In the year following her father’s death in 1978, Still says there were only 15 performances of his works, though he wrote nearly 200 compositions. This year there have been more than 14,000.

“People are discovering his music. I’m not sure it’s because we’re getting more tolerant racially, because I’m not sure we are, but my father’s music was not available at all on widely distributed recordings when he died.” The family’s work is changing that. They made the first all-Still recording in 1980, and labels such as Koch, Chandos, and Newport Classic followed. “Somebody noticed that we had been successful with the first recording and other companies came forward. Now we have over fifty [recordings] and there’s more stuff coming out.”

Still speaks with satisfaction about the headway the CD project has made in disseminating the music to the public, but she has no plans to slow down now. The project does not have nonprofit status and so does not solicit outside donations. Profits from the sale and performance of Still’s music, in addition to funds contributed or borrowed by the family, she says, all go towards the purchase of CDs for distribution.

Eastman Jazz Ensemble Photo courtesy of the Eastman School of Music

The Eastman Jazz Ensemble and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) Jazz Ensemble I took top honors in the collegiate level jazz big band division of the 24th Annual Down Beat Student Music Awards. Both ensembles are veterans to the award, Eastman having won the award four times in the past six years and UWEC being recognized in 1996 and 1998 for their excellence as an ensemble.

Founded in 1978, the Down Beat Student Music Awards, or the DB’s as they are affectionately referred to by some, recognize the top jazz ensembles, choirs, soloists, composers and arrangers from educational institutions ranging from the middle school to the collegiate level. Nine judges evaluated the participating groups based on a number of performance criteria including overall sound, proper interpretation, improvisation, creativity, intonation, phrasing and dynamics. Selected from a competitive talent pool, winners must demonstrate a distinct voice in addition to technical proficiency.

The Eastman Jazz Ensemble, now directed by faculty member Fred Sturm, used to be completely run by student musicians until Chuck Mangione became the ensemble’s first faculty director. In addition to their award for best college big band, Eastman graduate student Jamey Simmons took home the award for best jazz arrangement for his version of “The Man From Tanganyika.”

The ensemble has been featured at festivals and concert halls around the world and Down Beat recently invited some of Eastman’s best students to perform at the JVC Jazz Festival. They performed on June 19, 2001 in New York City’s Bryant Park. An Eastman “Jazz Performance Workshop” honors section coached by Harold Danko was featured on a program along with the Berklee School of Music Jazz Ensemble and the Milwaukee High School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble.

MP3 Sample: Eastman Jazz: Take It All.

Jazz Ensemble I, directed by Robert Baca, from UWEC has the Roman numeral following it because it is one of four big bands that are faculty directed. In addition, UWEC has a large combo program and offers an array of courses to prepare students to go into careers as jazz performers and educators. All UWEC Jazz Studies Area participants receive an education balanced between classical and jazz training, although there is no major or graduate program that only focuses on jazz.

Drummer Adrian Suarez received recognition for an outstanding as an outstanding soloist in this year’s competition. Director Robert Baca said of the award the first time they won it in 1996 that the award was really like winning a Grammy for a music educator.

With Juilliard jumping on the jazz bandwagon with their new Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, it has become obvious that jazz is moving with great momentum into a period of excitement and growth.

John Adams and Michael Tilson Thomas Photo courtesy Shuman Associates

The San Francisco Symphony has announced a ten-year commissioning project with composer John Adams. The endeavor will result in the creation of four new works, beginning with a piece to be written for the SFS’s 2002-03 European Tour and culminating with a commission in celebration of the Orchestra’s 100th season. In between time, Adams will write a third work for the SFS and one for the San Francisco Youth Symphony.

The project allows the Adams and the SFS to continue a relationship begun when the composer was appointed the orchestra’s first New Music Advisor in 1979, then as its Composer-in-Residence, a position he held until 1985. The new commissioning project was announced on the twentieth anniversary of the world premiere of Harmonium, Adams’s first SFS commission.

Brent Assink, the SFS’s executive director, explains that Adams was a natural choice for such an extensive project. “We don’t have a relationship with another composer that is as deep or as broad as our relationship with John Adams,” he says. “We actually looked at our past relationship with John and realized that had been 20 years since the first work. We thought that it was also important to look ahead to the future, particularly our centennial year which is about nine years away.” In addition, he notes, the SFS considered historical relationships between composers and orchestras, most notably Copland with both the New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He says that from this, “a kind of collective idea emerged that we solidify our past relationship with John into a future relationship that would ultimately culminate with a major orchestral work written for the SFS on the occasion of our centennial year in 2011.”

“I think it’s also important to point out that John knows this orchestra so well,” Assink adds. “He undoubtedly will write this music with the San Francisco Symphony musicians in mind, many of whom he knows personally.”

When the project was announced, Adams himself noted that “working with the San Francisco Symphony has always been a family affair. The orchestra has an innate feeling for my music, and we seem to understand each other as though we’d grown from a common gene pool. For twenty years and more, I’ve been inspired by these great musicians, and the thought of writing for them again fills me with pleasure and awe. This is the kind of opportunity composers dream of.”

Adams’s performance history with the SFS is substantial. Between 1980 and 1990, he produced a string of orchestral works, many of them premiered and first recorded by the orchestra. They include Common Tones in Simple Time (1979-80), Harmonium (1981), Grand Pianola Music (1982), Harmonielehre (1985), The Chairman Dances (1986), and Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986). Over the course of past twenty years, the SFS has commissioned four Adams works and given seven world and U.S. premieres, most recently the January 2001 North American premiere of Adams’s co-commissioned El Niño. Adams also appears frequently as a guest conductor with the orchestra and has been a supporter of the San Francisco Youth Orchestra, which has performed his music at home and on international tours.

Moving the AMC Library Photos by Lyn Liston

On June 29, 2001, the American Music Center (AMC) historic collection of more than 60,000 scores and recordings of works by American composers was transferred to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPL) at Lincoln Center. In a joint statement issued by AMC and NYPL, AMC Executive Director Richard Kessler and NYPL Executive Director Jacqueline Davis announced that the collection will henceforth become known as the American Music Center Collection at The New York Public Library (NYPL).

The AMC Collection is the largest single collection of scores and recordings by American composers in the world and contains many items that are difficult or impossible to find elsewhere. Since its establishment in 1939, the Collection has filled a need in the new-music community as an important resource for programming concerts and recitals or for scholarly research. A significant number of scores in the Collection are by self-published composers who have for years viewed the AMC Collection as a primary source for making their music accessible worldwide. Throughout the years, tens of thousands of works have been discovered, performed, and recorded as a result of their inclusion in the AMC Collection.

The American Music Center Collection was for years the repository of scores and recordings for the National Endowment for the Arts Composer/Librettist Program. The earliest works in the AMC Collection, a string quartet by Giorgio Garofalo and Un Grand sommeil noir by Edgard Varèse, were composed in 1906, with the most recent additions being made as late as June 2001. The recordings in the Collection total over 20,000 reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes, and LPs, a vast amount of which are of live performances unavailable through any other source. Works in the AMC Collection cover the widest range of styles and genres—including solo, chamber, orchestra, opera, music theater, electro-acoustic, art songs, choral music, and more—all reflecting the chronology of styles that have shaped the history of 20th century American music.

Moving the AMC Library Photos by Lyn Liston

This new arrangement between the American Music Center and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts represents a unique partnership between the two organizations. In the past, the AMC has provided an invaluable service to the new-music community by circulating items from the Collection throughout the United States and internationally as a means of promoting American music. Under the new agreement, AMC will continue to circulate perusal copies of scores from the Collection, and NYPL will house, maintain, and make the original items from the Collection available for on-site perusal, listening, and research.

In a letter to members, John Luther Adams, Board President of the American Music Center described this new arrangement as “the most significant improvement to the American Music Center’s Collection of Scores and Recordings since it was established in 1939.” He noted that the transfer of the materials to NYPL would upgrade the Collection by: (1) dramatically improving the level of collection care, with state-of-the-art storage facilities; (2) providing for a higher level of visibility of the collection through the combined networks of AMC and The New York Public Library; (3) restoring fragile scores and recordings on a case by case basis; and (4) preserving the Collection for years to come.”

“We welcome 62 years of vital and unique American music history to the collections of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, ” said Jacqueline Davis, Executive Director of the Library for the Performing Arts. “We look forward to maintaining this important collection, which will reveal its riches over time as it is explored by musicians and scholars.”

Moving the AMC Library Photos by Lyn Liston

Susan T. Sommer, Chief of The New York Public Library’s Music Division, said of the acquisition that “the arrival of the American Music Center’s Collection at NYPL’s Music Division is one of the most exciting events to occur during my long tenure with the Library. Not only does this mean that the AMC scores and recordings will remain a living collection, but it insures that their historic importance will continue to grow in significance as a cross-section of American composition in the latter half of the twentieth century. Future generations will be able to see not only individual works, but the whole panorama of American music of our time, preserved by NYPL under optimum conditions. We are grateful to the American Music Center for their foresight and enterprise in initiating such a valuable project.”

The partnership between the American Music Center and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts began in 1976 when the two organizations created an arrangement whereby after the death of an AMC composer member, their scores would eventually become part of the NYPL collections. Later, NYPL and AMC worked on a joint project through which 20,000 scores in AMC’s collection were cataloged in CATNYP, The New York Public Library’s online catalog. With this latest agreement, The New York Public Library will now acquire the entire score collection and help preserve a collection of American music that is historic and unique.

The American Music Center, founded by Aaron Copland, Otto Luening, Harrison Kerr, Marion Bauer, Quincy Porter, and Howard Hanson in 1939, is the world’s first service organization and information center for new music. In the past two years, AMC has introduced a variety of exciting new programs and services, including: an online catalog and print directory of new American music written expressly for student audiences; a Professional Development Program that includes a series of workshops supporting those pursuing careers in new music; and NewMusicBox. Last year AMC’s Information Services fielded more than 35,000 inquiries concerning composers, performers, data, funding, and support programs. Each month AMC publishes the Opportunity Update, a listing of opportunities in new music including calls for scores, competitions, and other new-music performance information. AMC, deeply involved in grantmaking to the field, administers over $1.5 million yearly, through grant programs for the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Henry Cowell Fund, and its own program, the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program. The American Music Center is a membership organization, with over 2500 members in the US and abroad.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, one of four major research centers of The New York Public Library, serves more than 350,000 visitors a year and houses the world’s most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. The materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of exhibitions, seminars, and performances. Approximately 30 percent of the Library’s holdings are books, but it is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs. The Library’s Research Collections are: the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, the Music Division, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. It also features extensive Circulating Collections with materials in Music, Dance, Drama, Film, and Arts Administration, including large collections of circulating audio and video recordings.