40 at 40

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Network for New Music we are planning six events including four concerts, an outdoor community-based event, and two composer retrospectives. The events reflect the diversity of identity, aesthetic, and style of newly composed music in Philadelphia, the region, and the larger creative arts communities. 

These events will support and celebrate Philadelphia composers in three different collaborative compositions that include commissions for 20 composers. Composers will contribute to commissioning projects involving musical tesserae that are assembled into a mosaic (sometimes referred to as the exquisite corpse model), as well as a collaborative dance suite from 5 composers. These short dances will reflect the composer’s heritage and assembled into a suite (collections of dances that vary in tempo and character). Network will also be creating a folk song medley with commissions from 5 composers who will choose a pre-existing song melody and create a new piece with allusions or quotations from the source song. Network will also honor Richard Wernick in his 90thyear by performing his music alongside commissions from 4 of his students who are based in the Philadelphia region. Network’s Executive and Artistic Directors, both performing musicians, will commission 4 composers to create new pieces for flute and guitar to begin each concert. The season will include two featured commissioned works by Philadelphia native Eliza Brown (they/them) and MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow Courtney Bryan. Both composers will be present for the premiere performance and Bryan is engaged to both compose and perform with the Network Ensemble in the premiere performance.