New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media programs originally created at the American Music Center: NewMusicBox and Counterstream Radio.

American Music Center

The American Music Center (AMC) was a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

organization which aimed to promote the creating, performing, and enjoying new American music. It was founded in 1939 as a membership organization by composers Marion Bauer,

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

, Howard Hanson, Harrison Kerr, Otto Luening, and Quincy Porter. For many years the main activity of the center was the accumulation of a library of American music which accepted score submissions from all composers who joined as members. The center's library, which eventually contained over 60,000 individual scores, featured published materials as well as unpublished manuscripts, many of which were unavailable elsewhere. (On June 29, 2001, the entire collection was transferred to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.) In the 1950s, the Center created a landmark program funded by the Ford Foundation, to commission, perform, and record new American orchestral works, which resulted in 18 commissioned orchestral works, 72 performances, 12 recordings, and a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

for

John La Montaine John Maynard La Montaine, also later LaMontaine, (March 17, 1920 – April 29, 2013) was an American pianist and composer, born in Oak Park, Illinois, who won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Piano Concerto No. 1 "In Time of War" (1958 ...

's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. The works also include Gunther Schuller's Seven Studies on Themes by Paul Klee, with is among the very first Third Stream orchestra works. In the early 1960s, the Center initiated its Copying Assistance Program, later renamed the Composer Assistance Program, which gave grants directly to composers to assist in the preparation of performance materials. In subsequent decades, the center established additional grant programs including one which funded the live performance of music at dance presentations as well as programs to support recorded music. For many years the American Music Center ran the grant program of the Aaron Copland Fund. In 1999, the American Music Center launched the web magazine ''NewMusicBox,'' and, in 2007, Counterstream Radio, a 24-hour online station broadcasting music by United States composers. It had grants for composers and ensembles, and offered professional development resources for new music professionals. For many years, the American Music Center was run by composer Ray Green. Other directors included Margaret Jory, Nancy Clarke, Toni Greenberg, and Richard Kessler. In 2019

Vanessa Reed Vanessa may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Vanessa'' (Millais painting), an 1868 painting by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais * ''Vanessa'', a 1933 novel by Hugh Walpole * ''Vanessa'', a 1952 instrumental song written by Bernie ...

was appointed as the new president and CEO.

Meet The Composer

Meet The Composer was a United States organization founded in 1974 by the New York State Council on the Arts. Initially, it was a program at NYSCA called Composer in Performance, after a few years, the Council then asked the American Music Center to take the project over as one of its own program and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

John Duffy was hired as program director. John Duffy then gave it the name: Meet The Composer. In later years, Meet The Composer was spun off by the American Music Center as an independent organization run by John Duffy. It sought to assist composers in making a living through writing music by sponsoring commissioning, residency, education, and audience interaction programs. Meet The Composer's mission was, "to increase opportunities for composers by fostering the creation, performance, dissemination, and appreciation of their music."EarShot Partners
", ''EarShotNetwork.org''. In 2005, Meet The Composer was among 406

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

arts and social service institutions to receive part of a $20 million grant from the

Carnegie Corporation The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...

, which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

References

External links

New Music USA (current official site)Meet The Composer (former site)
an
American Music Center (former site)NewMusicBoxAmerican Music Center collection of score manuscripts, 1935-1996
Music Division, The New York Public Library. {{Authority control 1974 establishments in New York (state) Classical music in the United States Music organizations based in the United States Organizations established in 1974