About the Festival

Follow this link for information about the 30th Annual New Music Festival, October 22-24 2009.

At the heart of the Center’s activities is the renowned New Music Festival. This annual event celebrates the contemporary arts through concerts, panels, art exhibitions, seminars, master classes and papers. Begun in 1980, the festival has hosted John Adams, Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, William Bolcom, Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Chen Yi, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Anthony Davis, Philip Glass, John Harbison, Lou Harrison, Karel Husa, Joan La Barbara, Paul Lansky, Pauline Oliveros, Shulamit Ran, Bernard Rands, Terry Riley, Christopher Rouse, Frederic Rzewski, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Bright Sheng, Morton Subotnick, Joan Tower, Vladimir Ussachevsky and more than 300 other guest composers and musicians since 1980.

The 2009 festival (October 22-24, 2009) will feature guest composer Steven Stucky and many other guest composers, performers and presenters.

The 30th Annual New Music Festival is sponsored in part by grants from The National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer/MetLife Creative Connections.

 

The Center accepts scores year-round for consideration on the New Music & Art Festival and perfomance on other University-sponsored concerts. For information on submitting pieces, please see our call for scores and papers. Scores sent after the cutoff date will automatically be considered for the next festival.

The Center is also creating an online archive of materials from the New Music & Art Festival, including recordings, interviews and print materials. Please see the media section of the web to listen to performances, interviews and radio programs, and to view back issues of the Contemporary Music Forum, a journal of the proceedings of the paper sessions from the festival.