Meet the Composer
Meet The Composer Announces the 2010 Projects of Commissioning Music/USA
America’s preeminent commissioning organization awards $245,000 for the creation of 19 new works
Classical, jazz, and theater composers collaborate with choreographers, filmmakers, actors, puppeteers and visual artists to develop eclectic and far-reaching performance works
August 18, 2010—Meet The Composer announces the collaborations awarded for the 2010 Commissioning Music/USA program. They are a diverse group of 19 composers and 45 choreographers, theater artists, filmmakers, and visual artists. This year, MTC awards $245,000 to 32 organizations to commission 19 new works. Composers at the leading edge of contemporary classical, jazz, and theater music will join with a wide variety of artists to combine music with dance, theater, film, and puppetry.
Meet The Composer president Ed Harsh says of this year’s selections, "We are thrilled by the creative energy that MTC is able to unleash from this excitingly varied group of artistic collaborations. Audiences across the country are going to find these new works fresh and engaging."
Some highlights from the 2010 Commissioning Music/USA projects:
- Composer Amy Denio, playwright Dan Froot, and puppeteer Dan Hurlin will create Who’s Hungry Santa Monica, a set of three toy theater plays with music based on the lives of homeless and hungry residents of Santa Monica, CA.
- Composer Mark Grey will partner with librettist Niloufar Talebi and visual artist Catherine Owens on Atash Sorushān (Fire Angels), a love story between Mana (the divine life force) and Ahsha (truth/existence) that will premiere at Carnegie Hall in March 2011.
- Composer Phil Kline will partner with acclaimed director Jim Jarmusch for Tesla, an opera based on inventor Nikola Tesla’s years in lower Manhattan
- Composer Elizabeth Brown will collaborate with video artist Lothar Osterburg to create A Bookmobile for Dreamers, a multimedia chamber opera for theremin, electronic sound and video that is inspired by the joy of browsing and will celebrate the imagination as inspired by the printed word.
- Cuban born composer and saxophonist Yosvany Terry and poet and writer Carl Hancock Rux will create Makandal, an opera based on Rux’s observance of the book “The Kingdom of This World” by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier that takes readers from the Haitian revolt to the rise and fall of King Henri Christophe.
- The Queens Symphony Orchestra will commission composer Frank London, working with writer Judith Sloan, to create, 1001 Voices, A Symphony for Queens for singers, actors and dancers, that will tell the story of the various immigrant populations that have settled in Queens over the years.
- Composer Hahn Rowe and choreographer John Jasperse will create a new evening length project for cello, violin, percussion, and six dancers. The work will explore how one might manifest the intangible, by imparting a shimmering quality to the otherwise mundane.
- Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell will collaborate with renowned filmmaker Bill Morrison on The Great Flood, an evening length work of music and film that will be based on the catastrophic Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and the ensuing transformation of American society that was reflected in the world of music.
The full list of Commissioning Music/USA 2010 Awards:
| Composer/Collaborators (primary) | Lead Commissioner |
|---|---|
| Amy Denio, Dan Froot | 501 (see three) ARTS |
| Mark Grey, Niloufar Talebi | Carnegie Hall |
| Fang Man, Roni Koresh | Dolce Suono Chamber Music Concert Series |
| Phil Kline, Jim Jarmusch | Duke University/Duke Performance |
| Elizabeth Brown, Lothar Osterburg | Electronic Music Foundation |
| Robert Mazurek, Marianne Kim | Festival of New Trumpet Music |
| Yosvany Terry, Carl Hancock Rux | Harlem Stage |
| Juraj Kojs, Alexey Taran | Harold Golen Gallery |
| Robert Mirabal, Eiko and Koma Otake | Inta, Inc. |
| Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb | Jack Straw Productions |
| Diedre Murray, Cornelius Eady | Music-Theatre Group, Inc. |
| Corey Dargel, Andrew Sean Greer | Newspeak |
| Frank London, Judith Sloan | Queens Symphony Orchestra |
| Victor Adan, Douglas Repetto | Talea Ensemble |
| Hahn Rowe, John Jasperse | Thin Man Dance |
| Christopher Jonas | TILT Brass |
| Jonathan Bepler, Wally Cardona | WCV, Inc. |
| Bill Frisell, Bill Morrison | Wexner Center for the Arts |
| David Bithell, Ali Momeni | Yarn/Wire |
For two decades, Meet The Composer’s commissioning programs have facilitated the creation and multiple performances of over 1,300 works by many of America’s most exciting contemporary composers. Examples of celebrated works that MTC has commissioned include: John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer and Andre Previn’s opera A Streetcar Named Desire; orchestral works such as John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, Philip Glass’s Concerto Fantasy, and William Bolcolm’s Symphony No. 6; multimedia pieces such as Meredith Monk’s Mercy and Paul Dresher’s Sound Stage; dance collaborations such as Lou Harrison’s Rhymes with Silver (Mark Morris Dance Group) and Zakir Hussain’s Flammable Contents; and ensemble works such as Tan Dun’s Concerto for Six Players, John Harbison’s Flashes and Illuminations, and Julia Wolfe’s Early That Summer.
ABOUT COMMISSIONING MUSIC/USA
Commissioning Music/USA is a landmark commissioning program developed by Meet The Composer in response to a critical need on the part of the music community. Commissioning Music/USA provides national support for the commissioning and multiple performances of new works representing all styles of music. The program provides support for emerging and established composers, promotes wider knowledge and appreciation of contemporary works, and encourages organizations to work together to build the repertoire for new music. Commissioning Music/USA is made possible by generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Ford Foundation, the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Helen F. Whitaker Fund.
The submission deadline and guidelines for the 2011 round of Commissioning Music/USA will be posted on MTC’s website in the fall of 2010: www.meetthecomposer.org. For further information, contact MTC's Program Department at (212) 645-6949.
ABOUT MEET THE COMPOSER
Meet The Composer is a national organization founded in 1974 that has revolutionized the environment for composers in this country. Its mission is to increase opportunities for composers of every style of music by fostering the creation, performance, dissemination, and appreciation of their work. In so doing, Meet The Composer has radically expanded the repertoire of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, creating a legacy for the music of our time—over 1,300 new works have been added since MTC's first commissioning program was launched in 1988. Meet The Composer's core programs include Commissioning Music/USA; Cary New Music Performance Fund; Music Alive; and MetLife Creative Connections (formerly the Meet The Composer Fund). The impact of these programs is felt in all 50 states and involves approximately 300 composers annually, representing the full spectrum of contemporary American culture and such idioms as classical, opera, jazz, folk, ethnic, electronic, and more. Meet The Composer is currently engaged in a number of special projects designed to further its vision—that composers should become an integral part of the cultural life and creative output of their communities, and that their music find broad, new audiences and benefit communities across the country.