ACO exists to inspire, develop, support and build the art of American composers seeking to create new orchestral music. For over 40 years, we’ve worked with and celebrated composers such as Philip Glass, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Joan Tower, and George Lewis, and more recently Paola Prestini, Du Yun, Alex Temple and Matthew Aucoin. We have premiered over 350 pieces at venues across NYC including Carnegie Hall, Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and placed these works with esteemed orchestras nationwide. We are dedicated to promoting diversity and representing all the voices and views that reflect America today.
Please note: ACO is transitioning 40+ years of data.The current archive is not yet comprehensive. To see a full list of ACO Composers, please click here.
Martin Kennedy (b. 1978) began his training at Indiana University, where he received a B.M. in both Composition and Piano Performance.
Matthew Aucoin, a 2018 MacArthur Fellow, is an American composer, conductor, pianist, and writer. His oeuvre as a composer extends from solo piano to chamber and orchestral music to opera.
Composer Performer Improviser hailed as “a promising new voice” (Lawrence Budmen, Miami Herald) and a “risk taker” (Neil De La Flor, Huffington Post) whose music is “insistent and defiant envelopingly hypnotic” (Alan Young, Lucid Culture).
Matthew Tommasini (b. 1978) is a composer based in New York where he serves as Director of Education of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Composer Mátti Kovler was born in Moscow, raised in Jerusalem, and is now based in Brooklyn.
Max Grafe (b. 1988) writes music characterized by “jagged declamations and muffled filigree” (Gramophone) with the aim of striking a distinctive balance between the stylistic immediacy of modernism and the dramatic power of romanticism.
Beginning her musical career at age five, Melody Eötvös studied piano and music theory under her parent’s tutelage and at age eight began learning the cello, which coincided with her first experimentations in composition.
Meng Wang (b.1989) is a Chinese composer currently based in New York City. Her composition portfolio shows a prolific collection of orchestral, chamber, and electronic works.
The music of Michael Gatonska (1967; Norwood, MA, United States) has been performed around the United States.
Michael Laurello (b. 1981) is a composer and recording/mixing engineer based in Northwest Ohio.
Michael Small’s works often draw on visual or literary sources and seek to place the listener’s imaginative journey at the heart of the work’s narrative. Dreams, hallucinations, memory, flight, and surreal landscapes are recurring themes.
MICHAEL-THOMAS FOUMAI (b. 1987, Honolulu, Hawai‘i) is a composer of contemporary concert music and educator. His music has been described as “vibrant and cinematic” (New York Times) and “full of color, drama, and emotion” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).
Morton Feldman was born in New York in 1926 and died there in 1987. Just like Cage, a close friend, he was an American composer – an American artist – an American in the true sense of the word.
Natalie Williams is a composer, academic and artistic manager. Her music has been commissioned and performed in Australia, the United States and Europe.
For nearly two decades, Nate Smith has been a key piece in reinvigorating the international music scene with his visceral, instinctive, and deep-rooted style of drumming.
Hi I’m a composer in Hollywood working in music for the stage, screen and classical world.
A native of Northern California, Nathan Parker Smith is an active performer and composer currently residing in Brooklyn, New York.
Nicholas Bentz is forging a path of the composer-performer that hasn’t been explored in generations. His music often takes its inspiration from pieces of literature and poetry, film, and visual art.
Nick Omiccioli (b.1982) is composer, electric guitarist, and educator. Nick has been described as a “rising star” [The Kansas City Star] and a composer with “powerful ideas” that “expresses them confidently” [The Straits Times].
Rhodes Scholar (b. 1989), hailed as a “bright young star” and a “first-rate talent” by the Portland Press Herald, composes music that is diverse in style but always oriented toward meaningful narrative arcs.
From ballet to opera to Korean traditional-orchestra, the wide-ranging talent of composer Nicky Sohn is sought after across the United States, Europe, and Asia.
The music of Niloufar Iravani has been performed nationally and internationally by recognized ensembles and soloists and presented in professional festivals and conferences in the US and around the world.
Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize in Musical Composition, New York-based composer Nina C. Young’s music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, Inscape, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the orkest de ereprijs, the Phoenix Symphony, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, and other leading cultural institutions.
Grew up in communist Poland, then emigrated to the FRG. Studied in the USA. Teaches in Canada.
Ole Mathisen is a saxophonist, composer and teacher, with a strong background in jazz.
In 2017, “Schlinkepuetz – eine Monsteroper”, a theater production for children with music by Patricio “met the laughing-nerve of the audience with pinpoint precision.
Patrick O’Malley (1989) is a composer whose works explore the musical interplay between emotion, color, energy, and landscape.
Originally from Danbury, CT, Paul Frucht is an American composer whose music has been hailed for its “sense of lyricism, driving pulse, and great urgency” (WQXR).
Paul Kerekes’ music is described as “striking…ecstatic…dramatic” (WQXR), “highly eloquent” (New Haven Advocate), and able to create “an almost tactile picture” (The New York Times).
Paul Novak writes music that is lyrical but fragmented, exploring the subtleties of instrumental color and drawing influence from literature, art, and poetry.
To preserve and promote new American Music, we assemble and maintain an extensive video and audio archive of the works we perform.
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, pre-college and college education programs, and emerging composer professional development to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders.
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