American Composers Orchestra's EarShot CoLABoratory Program Addresses Systemic Barriers Within Orchestral Commissioning

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) has relaunched its EarShot CoLABoratory fellowship program, which previously ran from 2007-2016. This season's Fellows are inti figgis-vizueta, Trevor New, Yvette Janine Jackson, and Mendi & Keith Obadike. EarShot CoLABoratory Fellows participate in collaborative sessions with ACO musicians to workshop musical ideas and facilitate co-learning, and also engage in ACO's artistic curation, and educational initiatives, and community-focused programming. Jackson and figgis-vizueta's new pieces will be premiered by ACO at the orchestra's season opening concert, The Natural Order, at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 7:30pm.

EarShot CoLABoratory advances the work of composers whose work is experimental or rooted in musical traditions underrepresented in orchestral repertoire. The program addresses systemic barriers within orchestral commissioning, providing a gateway to the field and a generative environment for composers from diverse musical backgrounds to create definition-expanding work for orchestra. Lead funding support for EarShot CoLABoratory is generously provided by the TD Charitable Foundation, with additional support from Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting.

The TD Charitable Foundation is the charitable giving arm of the TD Ready Commitment, a global initiative that helps level the playing field for those who need it most. A large piece of this initiative is to drive change by bringing communities together. As such, TD Charitable Foundation seeks to amplify diverse voices in arts and culture by supporting opportunities for emerging artists and professionals facing barriers to the sector.

"We are thrilled to be partnering with the American Composers Orchestra for the re-launch of the EarShot CoLABoratory Fellowships," says Akash Mahajan, VP, Senior Regional Giving Manager. "We are committed to art and culture initiatives that reflect new, under-represented and diverse talent. CoLABoratory creates a new paradigm within orchestral commissioning structures that enables artists to develop direct and relevant experience with orchestras."

About the 2022-2023 EarShot CoLABoratory Fellows and their Work:

inti figgis-vizueta writes magically real musics through the lens of personal identities, braiding a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools-in Chocolate City (DC)-with direct Andean and Irish heritage and a deep connection to the land. Inti was a featured composer in ACO's 2019 Underwood New Music Readings in 2019 (now known as Earshot Readings). Her Seven Sides of Fire, written for the Attacca Quartet and ACO, explores the current wildfire crisis through the lens of American Indigenous fire ecology and traditions.

Yvette Janine Jackson is a composer of electroacoustic, chamber, and orchestral musics for concert, theater, and installation.  Building on her experience as a theatrical sound designer, she blends various forms into her own aesthetic of narrative soundscape composition, radio opera, and improvisation.  Her works often draw from history to examine relevant social issues. She participated in ACO's Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute EarShot Readings with Naples Philharmonic in 2016. Her work Hello, Tomorrow! for orchestra and electronics builds on her previous electroacoustic radio operas and invites listeners to draw upon their own experiences to construct a narrative. The piece takes its title from George Lefferts' story that was adapted for the radio drama series Dimension X and X Minus One in the 1950s, and is a response to reading Naomi Oreskes' and Eric M. Conway's The Collapse of Western Civilization.

Trevor New is an electro acoustic violist and composer who creates innovative originals, intuitive and scored soundscapes that evoke a cinematic journey. In October 2021, ACO and New premiered Cohere 1, an orchestral work written for decentralized simultaneous telematic performance. His piece, Cohere Touch, will be a new work for orchestra and augmented reality system "The Hub," a custom-built, server-based system that can support in-person and virtual interactivity.

Mendi + Keith Obadike are a married Igbo Nigerian American couple whose work has been recognized for innovations in directed sound and listening, engagement with the cultures of the African Diaspora, and expansion of the field of sound art. Mendi + Keith make music, art, and literature. They have exhibited and performed at The New Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art. They are creating a meditative piece, Dream Train, inspired by the mythology of the train in African American music and visual art, which will feature ACO musicians and three actors. Rooted in African Indigenous dream temples and the "energy" music of the 60s, Dream Train invites participants to dream together collectively as a form of social intervention.

ACO is dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers, with a commitment to diversity, disruption, and discovery. This season's slate of performances includes eight premieres of new works by American composers, as well as the re-launch of ACO's EarShot CoLABoratory workshop program; the continuation of ACO's national EarShot Readings program for emerging composers with orchestras across the country; and its Sonic Spark Education program reaching at least 500 students in New York City schools.

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, and professional development, EarShot ensures a vibrant musical future by investing in creativity today. Read more about ACO's EarShot CoLABoratory program >

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