American Composers Orchestra Supports
Nineteen Emerging Composers in 2022 EarShot Readings

Houston Symphony EarShot Readings: March 29-30, 2022
Composers: Marina López, José G. Martínez, DM R (Diana M. Rodriguez), Marco-Adrián Ramos Rodríguez 

Oregon Symphony EarShot Readings: April 18-20, 2022
Composers: Andrea Chamizo Alberro, Nicolas Chuaqui, Marisol Gentile, Horacio Fernández Vázquez 

Tucson Symphony Orchestra EarShot Readings: May 17-21, 2022
Composers: Chelsea Komschlies, Xavier Muzik, Nathan Nokes, Steven Sérpa 

American Composers Orchestra EarShot Readings: June 16-17, 2022
Composers: Tommy Dougherty, Adeliia Faizullina, Patrick Holcomb, Elijah Daniel Smith, Will Stackpole, Yuting Tan, Yuqin (“Strucky”) Yi 

For more information about EarShot and the Participating Composers: www.americancomposers.org

New York, NY – American Composers Orchestra (ACO) continues its commitment to the creation and development of new orchestra music, and to the next generation of composers, through its 2022 ACO EarShot Readings program. This year, nineteen composers will participate in EarShot Readings with ACO, the Houston Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra. EarShot is a nationwide network of new music readings and composer development programs that provide professional level working experience with orchestras from every region of the country.

For over a generation, EarShot Readings, and their predecessor ACO’s New Music Readings, have provided all-important career development and public exposure to the country’s most promising emerging composers, with over 250 composers participating. Readings alumni have won every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, American Academy of Arts & Letters, and Rome Prizes. Orchestras around the globe have commissioned EarShot alumni.

Each EarShot Readings installment includes a series of private readings, feedback sessions, and work with mentor composers. Composers also receive a recording of their work. Feedback sessions with principal players and artistic and music directors provide crucial artistic, technical, and conceptual assistance. In addition, EarShot includes a series of online Professional Development Sessions which covers topics including creative collaboration, self-publishing for composers, fundraising, and orchestral commissions and contracting.

This season, ACO partners with the Houston Symphony for EarShot Readings from March 29-30, 2022, conducted by Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation Assistant Conductor Yue Bao. The participating composers are Marina López, José G. Martínez, DM R (Diana M. Rodriguez), and Marco-Adrián Ramos Rodríguez, and they will be mentored by composers Jimmy López Bellido, ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel, and Gabriela Ortiz. 

The Oregon Symphony, conducted by Raúl Gómez-Rojas, will read works by composers Andrea Chamizo Alberro, Nicolas Chuaqui, Marisol Gentile, and Horacio Fernández Vázquez for EarShot Readings from April 18-20, 2022. The mentor composers are Andy Akiho, Kenji Bunch, and Andreia Pinto-Correia. An open-to-the-public reading will be held on April 20 at 9:30AM at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR).

The Tucson Symphony Orchestra, with mentor composers Billy Childs, Michael Torke, and Melinda Wagner, will read works by Chelsea Komschlies, Xavier Muzik, Nathan Nokes, and Steven Sérpa for EarShot Readings from May 17-21, 2022, conducted by Music Director José Luis Gomez. An open-to-the-public reading will be held on May 19, 2022 at 7PM at Leo Rich Theater at Tucson Convention Center (60 S Church Ave, Tucson, AZ).

ACO will hold its own 30^th EarShot Readings on June 16 and 17, 2022 in New York City, conducted by ACO Music Director Emeritus George Manahan, with mentor composers ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel, Jonathan Bailey Holland, and Jessie Montgomery. The participating composers are Tommy Dougherty, Adeliia Faizullina, Patrick Holcomb, Elijah Daniel Smith, Will Stackpole, Yuting Tan, and Yuqin (“Strucky”) Yi. Two open-to-the-public events will be held – a working rehearsal on June 16 at 10AM and a public reading of the works on June 17 at 7:30PM at DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 W. 37th St., NYC). 

To date, ACO has partnered with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony and Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra (Mexico) through EarShot. ACO EarShot operates in partnership with American Composers Forum, New Music USA, and the League of American Orchestras.

Houston Symphony EarShot Readings

March 29-30, 2022

Conducted by Assistant Conductor Yue Bao

Mentor Composers: Derek Bermel, Jimmy López Bellido, and Gabriela Ortiz

Participating Composers: 

Marina López is a Pittsburgh-based composer and educator. Born and raised in Mexico City, she has a deep interest in exploring the psychological, ethnomusicological, and physical roots of her heritage. She started pursuing musical composition in fall 2012, under the guidance of the late Dr. David Stock. In 2014 her piece Sunstroke was selected by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as part of their 10th Annual Student Composers Reading Session. In spring 2018 she completed her Master's level studies in Musical Composition at Carnegie Mellon University, under Leonardo Balada. She is currently engaged in projects with Boston’s White Snake Project opera company and Victory Players ensemble. From fall 2020 through spring 2021, she developed and led an after-school program with a local nonprofit Casa San Jose that will provide an opportunity for Pittsburgh Area Latin American children to explore their musical and cultural heritage. She is currently working with Volta Music Foundation, which seeks to make music education accessible to students in need in Latin America and creating music programs that help underserved communities in the U.S.

José Martínez’s music incorporates a wide range of influences from Colombian folk tunes to contemporary composition techniques, while borrowing from Latin music, heavy metal and audio sampling techniques. An alumnus of the National University of Colombia as both a percussionist and a composer, he pursued an MM in composition at the University of Missouri, and currently is a DMA candidate in composition with emphasis in the use of electronics at UT Austin. He is also artistic director of the concert series Stack Overflow that creates opportunities for composers interested in electronics. Martínez’s’s piece En el Otro Lado / On the Other Side is based on his multimedia collaboration with video and dance, 39 Inside, which tells the story of 39 undocumented migrants found inside a truck in a parking lot in San Antonio, Texas in scorching weather in 2017.

Marco-Adrián Ramos Rodríguez is a Mexican-American composer and arranger who has written for a variety of media including works for voice, instrumental and electroacoustic ensembles, and dance. Composers with whom he has had the pleasure of working include Christopher Lacy, Robert Beaser, Christopher Rouse, Martin Bresnick, Mari Kimura, Christopher Theofanidis, Stephen Hartke, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Arturo Márquez. He is the recipient of 2016 and 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, as well as twice being a finalist. In 2018, he was awarded an artist grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures in conjunction with composer-mentor Gabriela Lena Frank, and was also awarded the Arthur Friedman Prize in 2018 “for an outstanding orchestral work”; the piece Toys in a Field was premiered under the baton of Jeffrey Milarsky with the Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. He has also been honored with a 2019 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2019 William Schuman Prize from the BMI Foundation. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at The Juilliard School and is currently an MMA candidate at Yale University, in the studio of David Lang. 

DM R (Diana M. Rodriguez) was born and raised in Bogotá, has lived in Miami and Boston, and is currently based in New York, NY. She is a composer of electroacoustic music, a concert series curator (C3 and CanvaSound), and a 90s anime aficionado. Having its footholds in pop culture, Colombian folk, and Rock en Español, her work has been presented by artists like ICE, Yarn Wire, ECCE Ensemble, Ludovico Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, Berrow Duo, Eric Drescher and Josh Modney at the BANFF Centre for the Arts and Creativity, the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, the Boston Conservatory, University of North Colorado, the Coral Gables Museum, and the New England Conservatory. Currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, DM R holds a master’s degree from the Boston Conservatory and a bachelor’s degree from the New World School of the Arts at the University of Florida. Her ongoing projects include collaborations with TAK ensemble, Oasi Trio, and Alejandro Guardia.

Oregon Symphony EarShot Readings

April 18-20, 2022

Conducted by Raúl Gómez-Rojas

Mentor Composers: Andy Akiho, Kenji Bunch, and Andreia Pinto-Correia

Open-to-the-Public Reading: April 20 at 9:30AM

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR)

Health and Safety Guidelines to Attend: www.orsymphony.org/safety

Participating Composers:

Andrea Chamizo Alberro studied composition and music theory at Center for Music Studies and Research (CIEM) at Fellowship level and obtained the FLCM Diploma awarded by the London College of Music. She has been beneficiary of the Young Creators Grant 2020, awarded by the National Fund for Culture and Arts, and the Arturo Márquez Composition Grant 2018, awarded by the National University of Mexico. Her work Soy Desierto had a Special Mention in the Arturo Márquez Composition Contest 2019 for Chamber Orchestra. Her music has been performed by ensembles such as CEPROMUSIC Ensemble, the Arcano String Quartet, the Sonora Philarmonic Orchestra, the Aurora Piano Quartet, the Wapiti Ensemble, the Lemberg Sinfonietta, and she has participated in composition workshops with Mexican pianist Mauricio Náder, the Mexico City Woodwind Quintet, and violinist Irvine Arditti. She is also professor at CIEM and is first clarinet in the Symphonic Orchestra of the University of Mexico City.

Praised for his “sharp and precise imagery” (The Utah Review), Nicolas Chuaqui has been recognized as a composer of emotional depth and imagination. Most recently, he was a winner of the 2020 Khorikos ORTUS International New Music Competition, one of four finalists for the ASCAP/SEAMUS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US) Student Commissioning Prize, and winner of the Bernard Rogers Prize from the Eastman School of Music for his orchestral work Cantus. Chuaqui composes music for a broad range of performers and venues, all of which is influenced by his background as a performer and his fascination with musical memory, time, and impression. Chuaqui has taught composition at the University of Wyoming and served as an instructor in both composition and theory at the Eastman School of Music, where he received his doctorate in composition. He also holds degrees from Indiana University and Dartmouth College.

Argentine conductor, composer, violist/violinist and soprano Marisol Gentile was born in 1972 in the city of Rosario, Argentina. Her catalog includes more than 120 works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestras, and choir. She has been awarded the Creation Stimulus Award by the SGAE Foundation more than ten times. She also received first municipal prize from the Buenos Aires City Government, a composition life grant. She is a member of the Red de Compositoras Latinoamericanas, UNACOM and AAC (Argentine Societies of Composers). She is also music director of Ensemble Rosario, Agrupación Instrumentalia, Orquesta de Cámara de la Secretaría de Extensión de la UNR, and Camerata de cuerdas de la Municipalidad de Victoria.

Horacio Fernández Vázquez, who goes by the stage name Horatio on the Beat, is a classical composer by day and an urban music producer by night. He is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in musical composition at The Juilliard School of Music, class of 2022. He writes music that embraces and fuses urban and western classical traditions, particularly those coming from Latin America. His music has been widely performed and acclaimed around the world by leading artists such as The Juilliard Orchestra, Zlatomir Fung, the Pittsburgh Ballet, Jeffrey Milarsky, the 5 de Mayo Philharmonic among many others. He has won prestigious awards such as the Arturo Márquez Competition, the James Galway Festival Composer Competition, The Juilliard Composer’s Competition. His teachers and mentors include Robert Beaser, Alan Belkin, Gonzalo Macías and Arturo Márquez. 

Tucson Symphony Orchestra EarShot Readings

May 17-21, 2022

Conducted by Music Director José Luis Gomez

Mentor Composers: Billy Childs, Michael Torke, and Melinda Wagner

Open-to-the-Public Reading: May 19, 2022 at 7PM

Leo Rich Theater at Tucson Convention Center (60 S Church Ave, Tucson, AZ)

Tickets: www.tucsonsymphony.org/event/earshot

Participating Composers:

Chelsea Komschlies is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in composition with Jean Lesage at McGill University where she has been awarded the Andrew Svoboda Prize for Orchestral Composition as well as the Research Alive Student Prize for her work in cognitive crossmodal musical meaning. Previously she studied with David Ludwig and Richard Danielpour at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was awarded the Alfredo Casella Award, and with Dan Kellogg and Carter Pann at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she was awarded the Thurston Manning Composition Award and Cecil Effinger Fellowship. Komschlies’ work springs from spontaneous subconscious mental imagery, and one of her goals is that listeners make deep, instinctual associations with her music, be they emotional, visual, or otherwise abstract. Her style is known for the way it brings together avant garde techniques and thick, microtonal harmonies with familiar storytelling arcs and sweeping cinematic climaxes. She has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, where she was the first woman ever to win the Hermitage Prize, the Fontainebleau School where Nadia Boulanger once taught, Copland House’s CULTIVATE, the National Orchestral Institute, and several other festivals in the U.S. and abroad. 

Xavier Muzik is a composer from Los Angeles, currently based in New York. He is pursuing his Master's Degree in Music Composition from The Mannes School of Music at The New School, where he studies with Jessie Montgomery. Muzik is also seeking a minor in Creative Community Development to empower communities of historically oppressed people to sustainably engage with the world through art and music on their terms. Muzik’s music is vivid, dynamic, sometimes heart-wrenching, but ultimately compelling. He creates music that seeks to engage the body's memories and wisdom. As a Black man of mixed racial heritage, he struggles with his relationship to his racial identity and how it intersects with his privilege and oppression. Music and community engagement have helped him explore this relationship in his pursuit to define his racial identity. Muzik is learning to engage with the quality of his Blackness, as opposed to the quantity, fostering him a broad exploration of his identity divorced from the dark legacy of race as a measurable function of biology. His music is often reflective of this journey. 

Nathan Nokes is a composer, sound artist, whose works explores human communication and interconnectedness in modern society. Working in acoustic, and electroacoustic mediums as well as interdisciplinary mediums, he has written for concert stage, installation-performance works, and multimedia installations. Works of his have been performed and recorded by members of ensembles such as Switch~ Ensemble, Line Upon Line, Tak Ensemble, Wet Ink, Ulysses European Ensemble, and Invoke Quartet. His string quartet and electronics work Alone Together received the 2020 Matera Intermedia Festival award in mix media. Nokes is currently a lecturer in Composition and Technology at University of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He is a founding member and the technical director of Less Than 10. He received a D.M.A. in composition from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.M. in composition from Hartt School of music at the University of Hartford, and BM. in Composition from Washington State University.

Steven Sérpa is an award-winning composer of opera, choral, symphonic, and chamber music. His orchestral and chamber works have been performed by the Austin Symphony Orchestra, the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, among others. His one act-opera Thyrsis & Amaranth has had over a dozen production and was praised by critics as a "truly beautiful… magnificent little story jammed full of thought and feeling and meaning" with “gorgeous music and wrenching lyrics.” Recent premieres include a choral oratorio on HIV stigma with Inversion Ensemble and a micro-opera responding to the Pulse nightclub tragedy with Thompson Street Opera. Sérpa has studied with composers Tom Cipullo, Dan Welcher, and Yevgeniy Sharlat, recently earning his doctorate in composition from the University of Texas at Austin. He makes his home in Austin, TX and works as co-director of Fast Forward Austin, producing inventive, forward-looking music experiences for local audiences and communities.

American Composers Orchestra EarShot Readings

June 16-17, 2022

Conducted by Music Director Emeritus George Manahan

Mentor Composers: ACO Artistic Director Derek Bermel, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Jessie Montgomery 

Open-to-the-Public Working Rehearsal: June 16 at 10AM

DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 W. 37^th St., NYC)

Tickets: www.americancomposers.networkforgood.com/events/41425-earshot-readings-working-rehearsal

Open-to-the-Public Reading: June 17 at 7:30PM

DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 W. 37^th St., NYC)

Tickets: www.americancomposers.networkforgood.com/events/41426-earshot-readings-public-reading

Participating Composers:

Composer and violinist Tommy Dougherty is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and solo works. Over the past several years, his music has been performed by the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, Modern Violin Ensemble (MoVE), Alarm Will Sound, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, and Kinetic Ensemble. In 2019, he was the recipient of the ASCAP Leo Kaplan Award for his orchestra piece Restrung, and in 2016 and 2017, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards. In 2018, Modern Violin Ensemble premiered Extraordinary Instruments, a violin quartet that aims to bring awareness to issues of gun culture in the United States. Dougherty received his bachelor’s degrees in both composition and violin performance from the Eastman School of Music and his Master of Music degree in composition from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. He completed his DMA in composition at the USC Thornton School of Music where he studied privately with Andrew Norman and Sean Friar.  

Adeliia Faizullina is a Tatar composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and quray player. As a composer, she explores cutting-edge vocal colors and paints delicate and vibrant atmospheres inspired by the music and poetry of Tatar folklore. The Washington Post has praised her compositions as "vast and varied, encompassing memory and imagination." Her recent commissions include works for Jennifer Koh, the Tesla Quartet, Johnny Gandelsman, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Her works have also been performed by the Seattle Symphony, cellist Ashley Bathgate, the Del Sol Quartet, and Duo Cortona. She won the Seattle Symphony Celebrate Asia Competition in 2019, she won first prize in the Radio Orpheus Young Composers Competition in Moscow in 2018. Faizullina was a guest artist at Play On Philly in 2021, and is a member of Composing Earth 2022-2023, by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. She was one of seven composers to be selected for the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute in 2022. Faizullina received her BM in Voice in Kazan, Russia, and BM in Music Composition in Gnessins Russian Academy of Music. She holds an MM in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Music & Multimedia Composition at Brown University.

Patrick Holcomb is a composer from Ocean View, Delaware who is currently based in Rochester, New York. Holcomb’s recent compositional honors include a 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a 2021 American Prize in Composition, a 2020 BMI Student Composer Award, the 2019/2021 Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award, and the 2019 Georgina Joshi Composition Commission Award. Holcomb completed his undergraduate studies at Ithaca College, from which he graduated top of his class in the School of Music with a BM in Composition in 2018. He also earned an MM in Composition and an MM in Music Scoring for Visual Media from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2021. He studied with Claude Baker, Eugene O’Brien, and Aaron Travers at Indiana University; with Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Evis Sammoutis, and Dana Wilson at Ithaca College; and with Mark Camphouse prior to beginning his college education. Holcomb is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition at the University of Rochester Eastman School of Music as a student of David Liptak and a recipient of the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull University Fellowship from the University of Rochester.

Praised by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a “rising star” composer Elijah Daniel Smith is quickly establishing himself as one of today’s leading young composers. His music, which has been described as “an extended flirtation with chaos” (Chicago Tribune), ranges from orchestral compositions to multimedia and interdisciplinary collaborations. His affinity for dense and complex textures, rhythmic ambiguity and fluidity, and rich gravitational harmonies shines through in all of his creations. Smith’s music has been premiered and performed by world-renowned ensembles such as The Chicago Symphony Orchestra for MusicNOW, Mivos Quartet, So Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Contemporaneous, ~Nois, Ensemble Linea, Ecce Ensemble, Fuse Quartet, Earspace, and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming commissions and projects include new works for Bergamot Quartet, DITHER, and saxophonist Julian Velasco on behalf of the Luminarts Cultural Foundation. Smith is currently pursuing his PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University after earning a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition from the Boston Conservatory in 2017, and a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in 2020.

Will Stackpole is a composer whose music has been called "lively” and possessing a "savage charm" by The New York  

Times. He began his musical career as an electric guitarist and recording engineer in Hoboken, New Jersey. He found himself driven to compose for the orchestra and quickly developed a vibrant compositional voice notable for its unique orchestration and quasi-tonal harmonic language. He continued his studies at The Juilliard School where he was the only ever three-time winner of the Juilliard Orchestra Competition. Stackpole’s works have been played across the United States by many notable ensembles including the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the AMFS Conductor’s Orchestra, the Davin Levin Duo, and the Juilliard Orchestra. He is also the host of the Adagio for Things podcast and co-founder of Red Dog Ensemble, a new music group focused on innovative concert works. Stackpole holds a B.A. in Music and Technology from Stevens Institute of Technology and an M.M. in Composition from the Juilliard School. He is currently a composition instructor and adjunct professor at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ and a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School where he is completing his dissertation on Steven Stucky’s life and music. 

Singaporean composer Yuting Tan writes music which explores the interaction of different sounds to form unique harmonies and textures. Her music has been recognized with numerous awards and has been performed in Singapore, the US, UK, Thailand, New Zealand, and Italy. Past collaborations include performances by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, National Sawdust Ensemble, Tacet(i) Ensemble, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Empyrean Ensemble, ~Nois, Alarm Will Sound, Now Hear This, Unassisted Fold, and Ensemble Soundinitiative. Recent commissions include four set pieces for the National Piano and Violin Competition 2021 in Singapore and a piece for the Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra as their composer-in-residence. Yuting also enjoys working with artists from other fields and creating music in collaboration with other art forms. In 2019, she performed her original live score for the USA premiere screening of Chinese film pioneer Shouju Zhu’s 1925 film Stormy Night (Fengyu zhi ye). Yuting is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Chicago on a full fellowship from the Division of the Humanities.  

Yuqin (Strucky) Yi is a composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. Influenced by a wide variety of music genres, his works aim for a crystallization not only of classical music but also of rock, jazz, and soul music. In addition to working in the commercial music industry, Yi has been involved with many classical and jazz events as a composer, orchestrater, and consultant. Selected for the NCPA’s Young Composers Program Award in 2019, his works have been in China, the United States, and Europe. His method of composition – of works that are often literary in conception – reflects the fullness and possibility of contemporary music, freshly processing timbre, harmony, and rhythm to generate a philosophical narration of life experience. Yi held a Dual Degree of Bachelor in Music Performance and Finance from the South China University of Technology’s School of Art. Later he received his Master of Music in classical composition at Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Marjorie Merryman, Damien Sneed, David Adamcyk, Miguel Zenon, Reiko Fueting, Marc Cary and Matthew Holman.

About American Composers Orchestra: Founded in 1977, American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers. With commitment to diversity, disruption and discovery, ACO produces concerts, middle school through college composer education programs, and composer advancement programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders. ACO identifies and develops talent, performs established composers, champions those who are lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting gender, racial, ethnic, geographic, stylistic, and age diversity. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including over 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works.

ACO offers an array of programs for emerging composers including its own annual New Music Readings in New York City, which has served over 150 composers since its inception in 1991, and EarShot Readings, which since 2008 have been offered in partnership with orchestras across the country in collaboration with the League of American Orchestras, New Music USA and American Composers Forum. Readings composers have gone on to win every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Rome Prizes. 

ACO has received numerous awards for its work, including those from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra’s outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded ACO its annual prize for adventurous programming 35 times, singling out ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States.” ACO received the inaugural MetLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. Read more: www.americancomposers.org 

American Composers Orchestra – Upcoming Performances & Events

Sanctuary
Friday, March 25, 2022 at 7:30pm ET
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall | 57th St. & 7th Ave. | NYC
Marin Alsop, Conductor
Jennifer Koh, Violin
Tickets & Information: https://bit.ly/ACO2022Sanctuary
ANNA CLYNE: Restless Oceans (2018)
HANNAH KENDALL: Tuxedo: Vasco 'de' Gama (2020)
DAI WEI: New Work (ACO Commission, World Premiere)
PAULA MATTHUSEN: New Work (ACO Commission, World Premiere)
LISA BIELAWA: Sanctuary (Co-commissioned by ACO, New York Premiere)

Houston Symphony EarShot New Music Readings 

Tuesday, March 29 – Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Houston, TX 

Information: https://bit.ly/ACOEarShotHouston 

Orchestra Unions 101
Panelists: Melissa Ngan, Joseph Kluger, Elena Dubinets
Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 4pm ET
Zoom Webinar 
Registration: https://bit.ly/ACOProfDevUnions

Oregon Symphony EarShot New Music Readings 

Monday, April 18 – Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Portland, OR 

Information: https://bit.ly/ACOEarShotOregon

Resistance and Healing: Engaging The Ring Shout

Sunday, April 24, 2022 at 3pm ET

Presented by the Apollo, the American Composers Orchestra, and the National Black Theatre 
A community engagement activity of The Gathering
Apollo Soundstage | 253 W 125th St. | NYC

Tickets & Information: https://bit.ly/ACOApolloResistanceHealing (Free with RSVP)

Live Wire: The Sound of Social Justice   

Thursday, May 5, 2022 at 6:30pm ET

Presented by the Apollo’s Education Department

A community engagement program of The Gathering 

Apollo Soundstage | 253 W 125th St. | NYC
Tickets & Information: https://bit.ly/ACOApolloLiveWire

The Gathering: A Collective Sonic Ring Shout

Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 8pm
Co-presented by the American Composers Orchestra and the Apollo Theater
Co-curated with National Black Theatre
In partnership with Gateways Music Festival and Harlem Chamber Players
Creative concept and direction by Jonathan McCrory
Chelsea Tipton, conductor
Gregory Hopkins, choirmaster 
Featuring: American Composers Orchestra with Gateways Music Festival and Harlem Chamber Players, Abyssinian Baptist Church Choir, Broadway Inspirational Voices, Convent Avenue Baptist Church Choir and Sing Harlem Choir
Apollo Mainstage | 253 W 125th St. | NYC
Tickets & Information: https://bit.ly/ACOApolloTheGathering
JOEL THOMPSON: Seven Last Words of the Unarmed (New York Premiere) 
JASON MICHAEL WEBB: New?Commission?(World Premiere)?
COURTNEY BRYAN: Sanctum for orchestra and recorded sound
TOSHI REAGON: New Commission (World Premiere)
CARLOS SIMON: Amen! (New York Premiere of orchestral version)

Tucson Symphony EarShot New Music Readings 

Tuesday May 17 – Saturday, May 21, 2022

Tucson, AZ 

Information: https://bit.ly/ACOEarShotTucson

ACO EarShot New Music Readings & Commission 

Thursday, June 16 – Friday, June 17, 2022 

DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 W. 37th St., NYC)

George Manahan, Music Director Emeritus & Conductor 

Tickets & Information: https://bit.ly/ACOEarShotNYC