1

The Minnesota Orchestra and American Composers Forumpresent

The 15th Annual

MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA COMPOSER INSTITUTENOVEMBER 6-10, 2017

The November 2017 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute is generously sponsored by

The Amphion Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music and Hella Mears Hueg.

2

Welcome to the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute! We’re thrilled to celebrate a milestone anniversary this year as the Composer Institute marks 15 years since its founding in the fall of 2002. The program’s success and longevity are a tribute to the friends, funders and listeners who have supported the Institute since its inception, including founding director Aaron Jay Kernis, our partners at the American Composers Forum, and especially Music Director Osmo Vänskä and all musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra, who are committed not only to the great repertoire of the past but also to fostering the growth of vital new work from today’s brightest young voices.

The seven composers invited as this year’s Institute participants will expand their understanding of orchestral writing as their works come alive through the artistry of the Orchestra’s musicians. Intensive workshops with musicians, one-on-one mentoring sessions, meetings with Osmo Vänskä, and seminars with leaders in the music industry will hone the composers’ skills for both the business and artistic sides of their professions. These unique collaborations allow the Composer Institute to open doors to the professional orchestra world that are often inaccessible to aspiring composers.

The week culminates in our annual Future Classics concert, conducted by Osmo Vänskä, which features one work by each participating composer. Adding still more interest to the event

is an onstage interview with each composer by Performance Today host Fred Child. We’re thrilled that our audience will share in the adventure of discovering new music from talents as distinctly inventive as these. And we are deeply grateful that Osmo Vänskä is so keenly and fundamentally involved in the Institute and its future. It is no small task to introduce seven substantial new works in one evening, and this concert, under Osmo’s baton, will be a thrilling end to the week’s events.

This year it is with deepest appreciation that we recognize the late Hella Mears Hueg, a longtime Composer Institute supporter and Minnesota Orchestra Director Emeritus who sadly passed away this past March. We continue to recognize her major gift that is supporting and sustaining the program. We’re grateful for her wonderful dedication and generosity, and we miss her deeply.

For me, there is simply nothing more exciting than hearing a work as it is performed by a world-class ensemble for the first time. It is a pleasure to share this experience with all of you, our friends in the audience, as we unveil these Future Classics!

Kevin Puts, Composer Institute director

Kevin Puts, Composer Institute directorKevin Puts, now in his fourth season as director of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for the opera Silent Night, which was commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Opera, as was his 2015 opera The Manchurian Candidate. His work has been commissioned and performed by leading orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Pops, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra. He has written five symphonies as well as concertos premiered by prominent soloists including Yo-Yo Ma and Evelyn Glennie. His most recent works include the chamber opera Elizabeth Cree, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and premiered earlier this fall, and a work for soprano and orchestra based on the personal letters of Georgia O’Keeffe, premiered last year with Renée Fleming as soloist. He is currently at work on a concerto for Baltimore Symphony principal oboist Katherine Needleman, to be premiered in summer 2018, as well as an orchestral fantasy based on music from his opera Silent Night. For more information, visit kevinputs.com or minnesotaorchestra.org.

Osmo Vänskä, conductorFinnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, the Minnesota Orchestra’s tenth music director, has earned wide acclaim for his support of contemporary works and composers, and has received a Champion of New Music Award from the American Composers Forum. In 2006 he expanded the Composer Institute to include the Future Classics concert, with which he has since introduced Minnesota audiences to 65 new works. Additional works he has premiered with the Orchestra range from Olli Kortekangas’ Migrations and concertos by Rautavaara and MacMillan to the oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn, composed by Stephen Paulus to a libretto by Michael Dennis Browne. Earlier this month he led the Orchestra in the world premiere of a major new work by Sebastian Currier, RE-FORMATION. Later this season he will conduct premieres of music by Jeff Beal and James Stephenson. For a more complete profile, please see page 6 of November 2017 Showcase or visit minnesotaorchestra.org.

INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME

3

PROFILES AND PROGRAM NOTES

Fred Child, hostFred Child, host of American Public Media’s Performance Today, is also commentator and announcer for Live from Lincoln Center. He previously hosted and directed programs at WNYC in New York and was a public radio host for ten years in his native Oregon. He has also been heard on National Public Radio and BBC Radio 3, and he has contributed to Billboard magazine. In 2011 he made his acting debut, collaborating with composer Philip Glass and violinist Timothy Fain in a live performance and video project called Portals. His musical background includes studies in piano, as well as experience playing guitar, percussion and bagpipes. More: yourclassical.org.

Saad Haddad / Takht

PROGRAM NOTEThe title of this work, Takht (meaning “ensemble” in Arabic), describes the typical Middle Eastern musical group that consists of most of the traditional instruments used in Arabic music, including the oud, qanun, kamanjah, ney, riqq and darbakeh. This work reflects a symphonic expansion of the Western equivalent of that ensemble. Some of the instruments even share similarities between each other; for example, the ney is similar to the flute in construction, while the kamanjah sounds very much like the violin.

An ongoing muse in my output is the voice of arguably the most famous Egyptian singer who ever lived, Umm Kulthum (1898-1975), the “Star of the East.” In this work, her voice is, in a sense, brought back to life as the woodwind, brass and harp players literally sing and play into their instruments, transforming the hall into an abstract depiction of Kulthum’s permeating presence in the lives of millions of people who continue to adore her today. Takht was premiered on April 29, 2017, by the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ryan Haskins.

–Saad Haddad

BIOGRAPHYSaad Haddad composes orchestral, chamber, vocal and electroacoustic music that explores the disparate qualities inherent in Western art music and Middle Eastern musical tradition. Recent career highlights include premieres of his works with the Albany, Sioux City and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras, Debussy Trio, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, and Columbus and Princeton Symphony Orchestras, among other ensembles. His recent distinctions include the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Barlow Endowment General Commission, the S&R Foundation Washington Award Grand Prize, the Jerome Fund for New Music grant from the American Composers Forum, the Palmer Dixon Award from the Juilliard School, the Aaron Copland Residency Award, and multiple awards from ASCAP, BMI and the Vancouver Chamber Choir. He holds degrees in composition from the Juilliard School and the University of Southern California, where his principal teachers included John Corigliano, Mari Kimura, Bruce Broughton, Frank Ticheli, Stephen Hartke and Donald Crockett. His music is published exclusively by Dib Press. More: saadnhaddad.com.

Andrew Hsu / vale

PROGRAM NOTE“The wilderness has a mysterious tongueWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,So solemn, so serene, that man may be,But for such faith, with Nature reconcil’d;Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repealLarge codes of fraud and woe; not understoodBy all, but which the wise, and great, and goodInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.”

– Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni, 1816

In languid pentameter, Shelley expresses one of his deepest insights into the life and work of the artist. Nature’s presence is indeed overwhelming, perhaps terrifying. The simple presence of a great mountain such as Mont Blanc is enough alone to crush any resistance against it; however, this mountain has also a voice. The awe and power of this voice is far-reaching: it refers to the voice of Deity, long referenced in holy texts, or perhaps in the speculative world of art, the direct impact of Nature upon the human experience. Our perspective of life is fluid. vale, therefore, is a work about transformation, and by extension, transcendence, and further, redemption. As Shelley’s lyric iambs transverse over Mont

4

Blanc, so the sonorities of vale transverse their own musical mountain: in search of nirvana, perhaps, or simply wandering through. vale received its first performance on April 28, 2016, by conductor Jeffrey Milarsky and the Juilliard Orchestra.

–Andrew Hsu

BIOGRAPHYAndrew Hsu is an award-winning composer whose music has been performed across the U.S. He is a recent recipient of the 2017 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2016 Hermitage Prize awarded at the Aspen Music Festival. His compositions have received honors such as several ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and a BMI William Schuman Prize. His upcoming projects include commissions for clarinetist Yoonah Kim, harpist Héloïse Carlean-Jones and violinist Angelo Xiang Yu. He is also a critically-acclaimed pianist who was one of only two musicians selected as the 2014 Gilmore Young Artists. He subsequently performed in the 2015-16 Gilmore Rising Star Series. He is a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School, where he is a pupil of Matthias Pintscher. He holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Juilliard. His mentors have included Gary Graffman, Eleanor Sokoloff, Samuel Adler, Richard Danielpour, David Ludwig and Steven Stucky. More: andrew.hsumusic.com.

Charles Peck / Mosaic

PROGRAM NOTEMosaic is the art of crafting an image using a collection of small, diverse materials. In my Mosaic, that concept is realized sonically using the orchestra as source material. Each instrument contributes only fragments to the larger musical world. In the beginning of the piece, these fragments are small and fleeting, creating a highly percussive texture, akin to viewing mosaic art up close. But as the piece continues, these fragments begin to overlap and expand, creating a sustained texture, akin to stepping back and observing the image in its entirety. Mosaic was premiered on September 16, 2016, by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra at Union Station in Los Angeles, California.

–Charles Peck

BIOGRAPHYCharles Peck’s music was recently selected for the Albany

Symphony’s Composer to Center Stage program and has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Symphony in C, the New York Youth Symphony, the JACK Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, ensemble mise-en, the Locrian Chamber Players, sTem, Derek Bermel, Ji Hye Jung and Holly Roadfeldt. He is the winner of the Lake George Music Festival’s Composition Competition, the NC New Music Initiative’s Orchestral Composition Competition, the Frame Dance Music Composition Competition, the Symphony in C’s Young Composers’ Competition and the Castleton Festival’s Young Composer’s Forum. His music has been awarded grants from the McKnight Foundation, American Composers Forum and Cornell Council for the Arts, and has been featured at Carnegie Hall, the Aspen Music Festival and several additional festivals across the U.S. His current projects include new pieces for the Boston New Music Initiative and Alarm Will Sound. He is a doctoral candidate at Cornell University and teaches at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. More: charlespeckmusic.com.

Hilary Purrington / Likely Pictures in Haphazard Sky

PROGRAM NOTELikely Pictures in Haphazard Sky contrasts moments of delicate sparseness with passages of rich textures and emphatic lyricism. Throughout the work, the fragments introduced in the sparse, faltering opening gradually coalesce into distinct melodic ideas. The title comes from a poem called “Starlight” by William Meredith. Meredith uses constellations to explore, among other things, our natural fear of randomness and our instinctive desire to find or create meaningful patterns. Likely Pictures in Haphazard Sky was premiered in December 2016 by the Yale Philharmonia.

–Hilary Purrington

BIOGRAPHYHilary Purrington is a New York City-based composer of chamber, vocal and orchestral music. Her work has received recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP and the National Federation of Music Clubs, among other organizations. Her music has been performed by many distinguished ensembles including the Peabody Modern Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, American Modern Ensemble and Chicago Harp Quartet. Her recent commissions include new works for Washington Square Winds, the Musical Chairs

PROFILES AND PROGRAM NOTES

5

Chamber Ensemble, and the Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC, while her upcoming projects include commissions from the New York Youth Symphony and the American Composers Orchestra. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the Yale School of Music. More: hilarypurrington.com.

Daniel Schlosberg / Small Talk

PROGRAM NOTEEveryone loves a good string section. It’s the soul, the romance, the heartthrob of the orchestra. This is usually displayed in sharp contrast to the percussionists, who must stand and beat time, endlessly. What if, though, the roles switched? Can strings be coarse and jagged? Can a crash cymbal be expressive and beautiful? Can a police siren sing a siren song? Strike up the band! There’s shouting, screeching, and hissing to do!

Small Talk was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and the 10th anniversary of Maestro Toshiyuki Shimada’s tenure. It was premiered on April 16, 2016, at Woolsey Hall in New Haven, Connecticut, and on April 21, 2016, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

–Daniel Schlosberg

BIOGRAPHYThe music of composer and pianist Daniel Schlosberg has been performed by the Dover Quartet, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Lorelei Ensemble, Amphion Quartet, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Antico Moderno, at venues including Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, (le) poisson rouge, Royal Albert Hall, Detroit Institute of Arts, Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Beijing Modern Music Festival. He received a 2014 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. His music has been featured in The New York Times and on WNYC’s Soundcheck. His recent projects include a 30-minute work for the Albany Symphony’s Water Music NY project commemorating the bicentennial of the Erie Canal, a fantasy on the music of Twin Peaks for the Dover Quartet, an operatic-theatrical adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s Once Five Years Pass for Williamstown Theatre

Festival, and works for Chamber Music Northwest, BodyVox, the CULTIVATE program at the Aaron Copland House, and for the Yale Symphony Orchestra’s 50th Anniversary. He co-founded the composer-performer ensemble Invisible Anatomy, serves as co-Music Director of Heartbeat Opera and is a core member of the chamber ensemble Cantata Profana. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and two master’s degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he also expects to receive his doctorate in 2018. More: danschlosberg.com.

Peter S. Shin / Relapse

PROGRAM NOTEIn 2012, a series of lapses in psyche confronted me with the two halves of my Korean-American identity, both of which—at the time—felt alien to me. Among many realizations, I became cognizant of my inherent role for the Asian-American community which struggles to be recognized as truly American. Today, I am educating myself on its collective origins and strive for a deeper understanding of my Korean ancestry.

The initial melody of Relapse is derived from the minor pentatonic scale, the major counterpart of which makes up the building blocks of the Korean folk song, “Arirang,” which has been inscribed—for its preservation—on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Although pleasant to the ears, this tune is an anthem of abandonment and tremendous lament, highlighted by drawing out the original dance-like 3/4 meter over a more stately and solemn quasi-4/4 meter. Although the central idea of Relapse, the melody makes only one incomplete and wildly-interrupted iteration following a series of rhythmic shifts within a rigid tempo, illustrating the grief behind the text, and the wave of doubts which—six years ago—would constantly disrupt my sense of belonging. Relapse was premiered on October 14, 2016, by the University of Southern California Thornton Symphony Orchestra conducted by Donald Crockett. Tonight’s performance is the premiere of a revised version.

–Peter S. Shin

BIOGRAPHYPeter S. Shin is a Los Angeles-based composer whose music thrives on reacting to matters of national identity, social

PROFILES AND PROGRAM NOTES

6

belonging, and other contemporary issues through his own Korean-American lens. Highlights of his upcoming activities include a Carnegie Hall premiere with the New York Youth Symphony/First Music Commission memorializing the life and death of Vincent Chin; a 2017-18 Fulbright Research Grant to South Korea; and the 2017-19 Berkeley Symphony/Music Alive Composer Residency. He is also a recent winner of a 2017 Aspen Music Festival composition fellowship, the graduate division of the 2017 SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Commission, and the 2017 USC Jimmy McHugh Endowed Composition Prize, among numerous other significant fellowships and composer residencies. He received his master’s from the University of Southern California as a James Newton Howard Scholar studying with Ted Hearne, Sean Friar and Frank Ticheli, and his bachelor’s from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor studying with Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Erik Santos. More: peter-shin.com.

Nina C. Young / Agnosco Veteris

PROGRAM NOTEIn book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido, long in grief over her late husband Sychaeus’s death, is suddenly awakened from emotional slumber by the visiting Trojan hero Aeneas. In an upheaval of emotion, she proclaims, “Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae,” or “I recognize the traces of an ancient fire.” The quote resurfaces in Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Purgatorio 30, Dante feels the presence of Beatrice and matches his emotional upheaval to that of Dido. Dante makes a final tribute to Virgil by stating, “conosco i segni de l’antica fiamma”—an Italian translation of Virgil’s same Latin phrase. This passage is the poetic impetus for my two partnered pieces Agnosco Veteris for orchestra and Vestigia Flammae for sinfonietta. While neither work is explicitly programmatic in connection with Virgil or Dante’s literary narrative, the music invites private, distinctive, and profound interpretations in each listener’s experience as she addresses the central concepts of lost memories, vestigial emotions, and melancholy for the passage of time.

Agnosco Veteris is divided into three large sections. Part 1, the Music of Before, presents the thematic source material, or sonic memories. Part 2, the Music of Ritual, is a static reflective checkpoint during which the listener can consider the musical recollections that came before. Part 3, the Music

of After, is characterized by energetic renewal and presents a reconfigured collage of the musical material. Agnosco Veteris was commissioned by Robert Spano and the Aspen Music Festival and School, and premiered on July 15, 2015, with Stephen Mulligan leading the Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra.

–Nina C. Young

BIOGRAPHYNew York-based composer Nina C. Young writes music that is characterized by an acute sensitivity to tone color, manifested in aural images of vibrant, arresting immediacy. Her experience in an electronic studio informs her acoustic work. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, Inscape, Milwaukee Symphony, Orkest de ereprijs, Phoenix Symphony, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Argento, Divertimento, Either/Or, JACK Quartet, Metropolis, Nouveau Classical Project, Scharoun, Sixtrum, SurPlus, wild Up and Yarn/Wire. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize in Musical Composition, she has also received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award, the Jacob Druckman Prize, and honors from BMI, IAWM, and ASCAP/SEAMUS. A graduate of McGill and MIT, she completed her D.M.A. at Columbia University. In 2016 she joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as Assistant Professor in the Department of Arts. She serves as Co-Artistic Director of New York-based new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé and is a Visiting Composer at the Peabody Institute. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical. More: ninacyoung.com.

The Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute benefits from the support of many partnering organizations and individuals. Our closest and longest-term partner is the St. Paul-based American Composers Forum (ACF), which manages the score submission process, brings word of the program to its large body of constituents—and serves as the Institute’s greatest friend, advisor and resource, continually helping to fine-tune and expand the program.

The American Composers Forum is committed to supporting composers and developing new markets for their music. Through granting, commissioning and performance programs, the Forum provides composers with resources for professional and artistic development. By linking composers with communities, the Forum fosters a demand for new music, enriches communities and helps develop the next generation of composers, musicians and music patrons.

ACF is one of the nation’s premier composer service organizations, with programming that reaches composers and communities in all 50 states. Its 2,000 members include composers, performers, presenters and other individuals and organizations that share the Forum’s goals and support new music. Members come from both urban and rural areas; they work in virtually every musical genre, including orchestral and chamber music, world music, opera and music theater, jazz and improvisational music, electronic and electro-acoustic music, and sound art. More: composersforum.org.

OUR PARTNER

PROFILES AND PROGRAM NOTES

7

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6

9:00-10:00 AM | Target Atrium COMPOSER INSTITUTE INTRODUCTION Kevin Puts and Mele Willis provide welcome and introduction

10:30 AM-12:00 PM | Target Atrium PUBLISHING WITH A PUBLISHER * Steven Lankenau

1:15-2:45 PM | Target Atrium SELF-PUBLISHING AND SCORE/PART PREPARATION* Bill Holab

3:00-4:30 PM | Rehearsal Room HARP SEMINAR* Kathy Kienzle

4:30-6:00 PM | Target Atrium PUBLIC SPEAKING SEMINAR* Diane Odash and Kevin Puts

________________________________________

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7

9:00-11:00 AM | Cunningham Green Room COMPOSER MEETINGS WITH KEVIN PUTS

11:00 AM-12:30 PM | American Composers Forum office, St. Paul LUNCH AND INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN COMPOSERS FORUM William Lackey and John Nuechterlein

1:30-3:30 PM | Target Atrium LEGAL 101* Katie Baron

3:45-5:15 PM | Orchestra Hall Stage PERCUSSION SEMINAR* Jason Arkis, Brian Mount and Kevin Watkins

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8

9:00-9:40 AM | Music Director’s Studio COMPOSER MEETINGS WITH OSMO VÄNSKÄ

10:00 AM-12:30 PM | Orchestra Hall Auditorium ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL*

1:30-3:00 PM | Target Atrium STRINGS SEMINAR* Silver Ainomäe, Jonathan Magness, Kathryn Nettleman

and Gareth Zehngut

3:15-4:45 PM | Target Atrium BRASS AND WOODWIND SEMINAR*

J. Christopher Marshall, Greg Milliren, Herbert Winslow, R. Douglas Wright and Gabriel Campos Zamora

________________________________________

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9

9:00-9:40 AM | Music Director’s Studio COMPOSER MEETINGS WITH OSMO VÄNSKÄ

10:00 AM-12:30 PM | Orchestra Hall Auditorium ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL*

1:35-3:35 PM | Orchestra Hall Auditorium ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL*

3:45-5:15 PM | Target Atrium ARTISTIC PLANNING: GETTING YOUR WORK OUT THERE* Kari Marshall and Frank J. Oteri

________________________________________

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10

10:00 AM-12:30 PM | Orchestra Hall Auditorium ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL*

12:45-2:00 PM | Music Director’s Studio FEEDBACK SESSIONS WITH OSMO VÄNSKÄ

8:00 PM | Orchestra Hall Auditorium CONCERT: FUTURE CLASSICS— EMERGING COMPOSERS SPOTLIGHT*

Osmo Vänskä, conductor Fred Child, host Followed by Q&A

SEMINAR AND EVENT SCHEDULEALL EVENTS ARE HELD AT ORCHESTRA HALL EXCEPT AS NOTED

*Events open to the public

8

Program ManagementKevin Puts, Composer Institute directorMele Willis, artistic operations manager

Seminar FacultyKatie Baron, attorney, Alter, Kendrick & Baron LLPBill Holab, owner, Bill Holab MusicWilliam Lackey, vice president of programs,

American Composers ForumSteven Lankenau, vice president, promotions,

Boosey & HawkesKari Marshall, director of artistic planning,

Minnesota OrchestraJohn Nuechterlein, president, American Composers ForumDiane Odash, senior teaching specialist,

communication studies, University of MinnesotaFrank J. Oteri, composer advocate, New Music USA;

co-editor of NewMusicBoxKevin Puts, composer

Minnesota Orchestra: Instrumental Seminar FacultySilver Ainomäe, associate principal celloJason Arkis, acting principal timpaniKathy Kienzle, principal harpJonathan Magness, associate principal second violin J. Christopher Marshall, bassoonBrian Mount, principal percussionKathryn Nettleman, acting associate principal bassKevin Watkins, acting associate principal percussion

and acting associate principal timpaniHerbert Winslow, associate principal hornR. Douglas Wright, principal tromboneGabriel Campos Zamora, principal clarinetGareth Zehngut, viola

Music Director Osmo VänskäMinnesota Orchestra MusiciansAmerican Composers ForumFred ChildComposer Selection PanelSebastian Currier, Libby Larsen, Kevin Puts, Michael Torke

“The week at the Composer Institute was one of the best weeks in my life. The conservatory training that I received has been invaluable in making me a better musician. There has been nothing, however, that could compare to what I learned in a week at the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute.”

–Ming-Hsiu Yen, 2008 Composer Institute participant

“The Composer Institute is vital to the Orchestra and our community as we cultivate new music and a new generation of composers. We are entrusted to be curators of all orchestral repertoire—both the historic works as well as music of today.”

–Osmo Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra music director

The participants of the February 2017 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute: Conrad Winslow, Katherine Balch, Phil Taylor, Judy Bozone, Michael Boyman, Michael-Thomas Foumai and Tonia Ko, with Composer Institute Director Kevin Puts at right.

Composer Institute Director Kevin Puts addressing musicians during a rehearsal, with Music Director Osmo Vänskä in the background.

Composer Judy Bozone introduces her work Spilled Orange at the February 2017 Future Classics concert during an onstage interview with host Fred Child.

Photos on this page are by Greg Helgeson

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PR-1718-003