Mellon Foundation Funds a Vibrant Future for ACO
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American Composers Orchestra, Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and Gateways Music Festival Awarded Grants from Mellon Foundation Totaling $2,400,000
The three classical music organizations will use grant funds to drive forward initiatives that increase institutional capacity and build sustainability.
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www.americancomposers.org | www.glfcam.com | www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org
New York, NY (September 26, 2024) – American Composers Orchestra (ACO), Gabriela Lena Frank
Creative Academy of Music, and Gateways Music Festival have been awarded significant grants from the Mellon Foundation. All three classical music organizations will use the funds to support infrastructure and build confidence in leadership, expand institutional capacity and stability, and increase sustainability and resilience in a changing arts landscape.
"We are honored to support the courageous leadership of Melissa Ngan, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Alex Laing,” said Stephanie Ybarra, Program Officer at the Mellon Foundation. “Their work at American Composers Orchestra, Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and Gateways Music Festival is reaching toward a more just and vibrant future for concert music and we are proud to invest in their continued growth."
A grant of $800,000 from the Mellon Foundation will support the American Composers Orchestra in expanding its national EarShot activities. EarShot is the first systemic program for building relationships between composers and orchestras nationally. Started in 1991 as an annual orchestral reading for six artists with ACO in New York City, EarShot has since expanded to serve 50+ artists in partnership with 26+ partners across 17 U.S. states and Canada in the 2023-24 season. Activities include national Readings, CoLABoratory Residencies, Publishing, Concert Performances, Recordings, and Commission Consortia.
With the leadership of President & CEO Melissa Ngan, ACO will build and pilot new frameworks for creativity-based social practices for the orchestra world. With collaborators drawn from the national network of orchestras participating in EarShot, ACO will articulate and share processes that support inclusive art-making from concept to completion, focusing on long-term relationships, stakeholder involvement, equitable distribution of resources, and developing mindsets/behaviors for greater inclusivity. ACO will bring together composers, orchestras, and public partners, building a national cohort that pilots creativity-based social practice projects in communities across the U.S. With a focus on art-making as a powerful vehicle for accomplishing a community led vision, the goal of the program is to develop a framework for the design and evaluation of public projects engaging composers as creative partners, and to create opportunities for composers to develop their own language for public participation aligned with their artistic practice.
Internationally acclaimed composer and pianist Gabriela Lena Frank’s Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music received a grant of $600,000 to fund staff salaries and other operational costs for its programs for emerging through mid-career level composers, as well as artist fees for its core fellowship program, Bahlest Eeble Readings (“excellent study” in Boontling, the local language of Boonville, CA where GLFCAM is located). Through the singular vision of Gabriela, this twelve-month fellowship provides composers the opportunity to compose and hear new chamber works in multiple readings from initial “seed ideas” to finished state. Through a mix of virtual and in-person residencies, composers work in cycles with no more than four peers to maximize personal attention including private lessons with Gabriela and one-on-one practicums with renowned performer-mentors. Upon completion of the program, composers receive benefits through the Alumni Support Initiative which offers a lifetime pass to all distance learning (online) classes focused on the creative habit, commissions for new works from solo through orchestral (including readings of the work in progress), invitations to the two-year Composing Earth program providing climate intelligence to creatives, invitations to the Artist Wellness curriculum and its associated discussion groups led by a trained therapist and social worker, and other benefits.
To cap its banner anniversary season, earlier this summer, Gateways Music Festival was awarded the sum of $1,000,000 by the Mellon Foundation. This substantial grant will support President & Artistic Director Alex Laing’s vision for the next phase of Gateways Music Festival. The funding will serve to expand and strengthen Gateways’ artistic and educational work, enhancing the organization’s capacity and flexibility, and extending its reach through residencies, tours, partnerships, and major projects such as Gateways Radio. Launching its second season in 2025, Gateways Radio is a nationally syndicated weekly program that is featured on 156 radio stations and media outlets, and celebrates Black classical artistry by spotlighting recent recordings and archival performances from Gateways Music Festival.
About American Composers Orchestra
In 1977, a collective of fearless New York City musicians came together to form the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), an ensemble dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers. Over more than 40 years committed to artistry, creativity, community and equity, ACO has blossomed into a national institution that not only cultivates and develops the careers of living composers, but also provides composers a direct pipeline to partnerships with many of America’s major symphony orchestras.
In addition to its annual season, presented by Carnegie Hall since 1987, the ACO serves as a New York City hub where the most forward-thinking experimental American musicians come together to hone and realize new art by developing talent, established composers, and underrepresented voices, increasing the regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music.
ACO produces national educational programs for all ages, and composer advancement programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders – all dedicated to American composition. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including over 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works.
Now encompassing all of ACO’s composer advancement initiatives, EarShot is the first ongoing, systematic program for developing relationships between composers and orchestras on the national level. Through orchestral readings, CoLABoratory fellowships, consortium commissions, publishing, and professional development, EarShot ensures a vibrant musical future by investing in creativity today. Serving over 350 composers since its inception, ACO Readings in NYC began in 1991, and since 2008, national Readings have been offered in partnership with orchestras across the country in collaboration with American Composers Forum, the League of American Orchestras, and New Music USA. EarShot 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 Foundation, Inc., 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. Learn more at www.americancomposers.org.
About Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (GLFCAM)
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Founded in 2017 by internationally acclaimed Latina composer and pianist Gabriela Lena Frank, GLFCAM assists composers of any aesthetic and demographic, and from emerging through mid-career levels, in developing self-determined 21st-century lives. GLFCAM’s mission, as envisioned by Gabriela, centers on the creative habit, community, and eco-citizenship, forming years-long relationships with composers. As a result, composers are provided a rich array of opportunities such as collaborating on new works with renowned performer-mentors, taking online classes and practicums, composing large-scale symphonies under fair commission rates with readings of the work-in-progress, teaching in youth music programs in underserved rural areas, participating in a multi-year peer-supported study group on climate intelligence and the arts, participating in artistic wellness practicums, and becoming skilled communicators – cultural witnesses – in both music as well as the spoken and written word. GLFCAM alumni are leading composers in the international music fields as well as teachers and professors, non-profit administrators, therapists, hospice workers, and civic volunteers. Still young as a non-profit, GLFCAM has received multiple awards, is frequently in the press, and has reached thousands of composers, performers, public school students, and community members. Learn more at www.glfcam.com.
About Gateways Music Festival
The mission of Gateways Music Festival is to connect and support professional classical musicians of African descent and enlighten and inspire communities through the power of performance. Founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1993 by noted concert pianist Armenta Hummings Dumisani, the festival was brought to Rochester, New York in 1997 when Hummings Dumisani joined the Eastman School of Music faculty. Approximately 125 musicians – comprising players in major symphony orchestras, faculty from renowned music schools and conservatories, and active freelance artists – participate in each festival. In 2016, while remaining an independent non-profit organization, Gateways formalized its longstanding relationship with Eastman and the University of Rochester. Among other mutual benefits, this deepened relationship provided much of the infrastructure and resources necessary for Gateways to increase its programming capacity, appoint its first paid staff position and broaden its impact in and beyond Rochester. In addition to the annual full-orchestra festival held each spring, other Gateways initiatives include a yearly chamber music festival each fall; the Gateways Showcase, a social media campaign designed to shed light on the extraordinary stories, artistic achievements and indelible impact of Black classical musicians; the Gateways Brass Collective, the only all-Black professional brass quintet in the country; the Gateways Residency, by which renowned Gateways artists are presented nationwide throughout the year in recitals, masterclasses and community-based activities; the Gateways Chamber Players, an all-star touring ensemble featuring some of the nation’s most renowned classical musicians; and, since January 2023, Gateways Radio, a one-hour syndicated radio program featuring Black classical artists on radio stations across the United States. Learn more at www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org.
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