April 7, 2020
Dear NACUSA-LA Friends,
During these extraordinary times, our Board hopes that you are
well and safe, and are using this time to write new music! We want to assure you that we are working on
some new ideas to keep expanding the activities and services of the NACUSA-LA
chapter, including additional ways to support our composer members and the
performers who present our music.
We had planned to have a Choral Music Workshop in April,
with professional singers, led by Sally Stevens, one of Los Angeles’
outstanding vocal contractors. We’ve had to postpone this workshop, given the
circumstances, however, we intend to reschedule it as soon as possible.
We are also planning to continue our series PIANO SPLASH
with yet another edition in July. This is an opportunity for composers to
perform their own works or have performers they have engaged to perform their
works, for piano plus one (singer, instrumentalist, piano duet). These are usually hosted by local piano
companies in their recital halls.
Hopefully, we will be able to schedule this when the quarantine has been
listed.
For the fall of 2020, we are planning two big events. One will be a day-long conference for
composers at a local university where we will present experts from music
publishing, recording, distribution, and music licensing to talk “nuts and
bolts” about these potential income streams for composers.
The second event planned for the fall 2020, is a concert of
new pieces for woodwind quintet. The score
call for that will be sent out in May. If you’ve always wanted to compose a
woodwind quintet, now is the time: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. We
are hoping to have a reading of the selected works, open to the composers,
followed a month later with a formal concert at a local university.
Watch your email for an announcement of our first online Zoom
Conference, open to all members, to take place later this month. The topic will
be “Coping with the New Reality: What are we thinking and feeling?” Composer
Allan Mentor, faculty at Fullerton College and NACUSA-LA Board member, will begin
the discussion with his own observations. The hour-long session will be hosted
by Carla Bartlett and I will serve as moderator. We hope you will join us for what we hope to
be the first of monthly on-line meetings of NACUSA-LA members.
These are uncertain times, yet we are certain that NACUSA
composers will continue to write new music, that performers will want to play
what we write, and that audiences will want to hear the music. We may have to
make some adjustments in the interim, but we won’t surrender!
PS. Please LIKE us on FaceBook.
