in the key of now

August 2023 | Iss. 134

ACF’s monthly e-Newsletter

Building an Accessible and Community-Focused Practice

"While we all need money and material resources to support ourselves, there are ways to commission and collaborate that don't follow the current model of capitalistic transaction, and instead result in a practice that is more accessible for everyone involved while also building longer-lasting collaborative relationships."

In our third Anatomy of a Commission essay, composer Yaz Lancaster explores commissioning as a communal practice and advocates for greater accessibility, not only financially, but also in terms of health and disability.

Click here to read on I CARE IF YOU LISTEN (6-minute read).

New Discussion Guide Webinar

In our new, on-demand webinar, music lawyer Ari Solotoff offers a step-by-step explanation of how to use the Anatomy of a Commission discussion guide in the early stages of your commissioning plans.

The discussion guide and sample deal memo helps frame the discussions between artistic parties before commissioning a new concert work for large ensemble.

To download the discussion guide and watch the webinar, click here.

Composer Oswald Huỳnh Centers the Vietnamese Diaspora in his Music

This month, our Editor Amanda Cook chatted with ACF's artist support associate, Oswald Huỳnh, a Portland-based composer who centers his Vietnamese heritage and identity in his works.

"I think when a lot of people first start incorporating aspects of their heritage into their music, it's a very tough thing to find your own lane and not sound like you're a 20th-century white composer learning about gamelan for the first time," says Oswald. "But through the process of learning more about my heritage, I realized that the Vietnamese aspect of my music is something that just came naturally to me. As I moved away from the idea of the ‘Composer Masters’ and went through my own decolonization process, that resistance went away."

Click here to read more about Oswald (6-minute read).

“Reconnaissance” Illuminates the Alluring Vocal Music of Kaija Saariaho (1952–2023)

On June 2, the news broke about the untimely death of Kaija Saariaho — a "sorceress of light and shadow, of dazzling luminosity and disconcerting orchestral stasis, all held together by a seductive aural mystique," Esteban Meneses writes.

Reconnaissance, the first posthumous album of music by Saariaho, is a collection of choral works composed between 1991 and 2020, which stand "somewhere between the perfectly idiomatic and the idiosyncratic."

Click here to read (6-minute read).

Failure is Inevitable in Classical Music How Do We Prepare Young Musicians?

"My life as a classical violist almost seems predestined — and yet, I can’t shake the apprehension I feel when a student approaches me about pursuing a career in this field," writes Katie Brown, a violist and educator, in this essay about the inevitable failures that young classical musicians face.

"Even if students have experienced isolated, low-stakes failures in the past, they have likely never faced continual rejection... As the overall level of performance and achievement gets higher and higher, the padding between success and failure gets thinner."

Click here to read (8-minute read).

Gerald Cohen – Voyagers

Stream the album

For over a decade, the Cassatt String Quartet has collaborated with composer Gerald Cohen. “Telling stories through music is central to all I do as a composer and performer — most explicitly in my operas and vocal works, but also in purely instrumental works such as those on this album,” said Cohen. The title work is inspired by the Voyager spacecraft that carried the Golden Record, an audio time capsule intended to give extra-terrestrial beings an impression of human culture on Planet Earth.

Josh Henderson – One More Night

Stream the album

Collective trauma. A concept that at the time of writing this, in 2023, the whole planet has a recent and unprecedented relationship with. But no, this project, while dealing with death and grief, is not a Covid memoir or can even begin to deal with that level of global tragedy and loss. This album deals with a different kind of trauma; the kind that results in outpourings not necessarily for loved ones, but for those that through their craft — whether handling a basketball, leading a country or singing directly to our souls — are able to intimately affect so many of us and help large populations deal with our reality. It is the collective trauma we experience when we lose our heroes.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

At ACF, we honor the Anishinaabe and Dakota people, the ancestral caretakers of the land where we make our home. We acknowledge the displacement, unjust treatment, and violence that they have endured over many generations; we offer our respect to the elders of the past, and to present and future tribespeople for their stewardship of this land and its resources. We are grateful for their rich cultural legacy.