CMNC

Does it seem as if we rarely hear music by American composers at our workshops? The CMNC board thought so, and thus decided it would be interesting to flavor our next workshop [Feb. 16-17, 2019] with the many wonderful composers from North, Central and South America. Some were born here, a few immigrated from other countries and became established as American composers. This embodies one of our founding principles; we have always been a nation of immigrants!

A search in our library came up with a varied list of over 100 composers that fit this category. Click here for a list of these composers, along with their dates and nationalities, to give you some ideas. If you find a composer or a specific piece you would like to work on, please mention it on your application.

Most [in our library list] are from the United States, but you will see composers from Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela and Argentina, and one, Bill Douglas, from Canada. There are nineteen women, including a number of old friends from the Women Composers workshop, including Harriet Bolz, Teresa Carreño and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

So often we play the old masters, which is wonderful, but it is intriguing to explore other possibilities. As the Western Hemisphere is a relatively recent venue for chamber music, this will somewhat skew our choices a bit to more modern composers, but there are also classical and romantic era compositions available. The earliest birth date I found in our list was John Antes, 1740–1811, the latest Caroline Shaw, born in 1982. In a few cases we could not find the birth date on line, so simply filled in the century.

If you choose to come as a preformed group, we encourage you to choose an American composer. However, it is your choice if you wish to work on something else.

If you attend as an individual, we will try to form ensembles of works by American composers, as long as the music is appropriate, worthy and interesting, and we have the right balance of instruments to create these groups.

We intend this to be a fun experience and will keep that uppermost in creating assignments.