“The San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Symphony will join forces for a 10-year commissioning project aimed at fostering new musical works by developing Black composers,” writes Joshua Kosman in Thursday’s (8/13) San Francisco Chronicle. “The initiative, called the Emerging Black Composers Project, is supported by a $250,000 donation to the Conservatory. Winning composers will each receive a $15,000 commissioning fee and musical mentorship from … Oakland Symphony Music Director Michael Morgan, S.F. Conservatory Music Director Edwin Outwater and incoming San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The selected pieces will be workshopped at the Conservatory in preparation for a premiere with one of the participating organizations. The judging panel includes composers Elinor Armer, Anthony Davis, Germaine Franco and John Adams, jazz vocalist Carmen Bradford and Berkeley Symphony Music Director Joseph Young, as well as the three mentors. ‘There are so many talented composers of color rising these days that it’s great someone is making a deliberate path for them, because these things don’t happen accidentally,’ Morgan said…. Applications are open now … with a deadline of Dec. 31. The project … is part of a larger initiative at the Conservatory to address systemic racism in the musical world.”
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