Meet The Composer's Commissioning Programs provide two critical tools to help bring living composers and orchestras together: financial support to orchestras for commissioning, and a program formula that ensured multiple performances for dozens of new American works. The quality and variety of the resulting work and the hundreds of performances have immeasurably enriched American orchestras and the millions of audience members they serve.

American orchestras, like most nonprofit performing arts organizations, are undercapitalized. The core functions of producing concerts and growing the performance quality consume nearly all resources. Research and development activity, such as professional development for staff and orchestra personnel, research, talent identification, and development for conductors and soloists, are, with a few notable exceptions, neglected by individual orchestras. The cost of such activity can be prohibitive and in many instances the nature of the challenge is national, not local.

Several arts service organizations, including of course the American Symphony Orchestra League, help orchestras fulfill their research and development needs. Meet The Composer, more than any organization to date, has helped the orchestra field integrate living American composers and their music into orchestral concert life, ensuring a growing and vital repertoire. Meet The Composer’s Orchestra Residencies Program was ingenious and transformative, spurring orchestras to make multiyear commitments to composers in residence, commissions, and new music festivals. The Commissioning Program was the logical follow-on program, providing new tools to support an expanding universe of composers and orchestras.

There remain few national or local sources of commissioning support. While individual patronage may be increasing, largely through the example set by the likes of Betty Freeman, the late Francis Goelet, Dan Lewis, and the Hecksher family, the cultivation of individual patrons is a long-term proposition. The Commissioning Program not only provided the much-needed funding, but also provided the imprimatur of a nationwide effort implemented by a partnership of the Wallace Funds, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet The Composer. The magnitude of support was sufficient to place commissioning “on the radar” of orchestra artistic leaders and development directors alike.

The Commissioning Program requirement for a consortium of at least three orchestras had many benefits. The first of course was to ensure that a work would receive performances beyond the world premiere. Minimally, this resulted in a three-fold increase in the number of performances over the traditional commission. In many instances however, four, five, or six orchestras joined a consortium, resulting in an exponential increase of performances. Ellen Zwillich’s Concerto for Horn and String Orchestra received 20 performances from the consortium members alone.

A second benefit of the consortium structure was to create a network of communication among the consortium members. The introduction of a new work often poses performance and production challenges. With no performance history to fall back on, the experience of the orchestra offering the world premiere can prove invaluable to orchestras giving subsequent performances. The consortium structure facilitated sharing of information like degree of difficulty, actual timing, parts issues, and rehearsal requirements. Information such as this, received in advance, can be critical to a successful performance.

Working with a consortium was not without its difficulties. For the lead applicant, it required putting the consortium together, agreeing on a composer, scheduling dates, and collecting the information from the consortium members to produce the application. Scheduling was often the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of the work. Artistic planning inside any orchestra tends to follow its own unique rhythm. Attempting to synchronize the planning among three, four, five, and even six orchestras could tax the patience of even the most dedicated new music champions. Nonetheless, absent any clear alternative, this observation probably falls into the category of necessary evil.

Looking at the 59 works commissioned — so far — through MTC’s commissioning programs, one observes a balance of composers represented. Established composers in the forefront of composition are in force: Harbison, Rouse, Tower, Rands, and Corigliano, to mention a few. And a generation behind are Kernis, Ince, Dzubay, Dougherty, Holland, Machover, for example.

Among the consortium members there is great variety, from the San Luis Obispo County Orchestra to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, from the Anchorage Symphony to the Florida Philharmonic, from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Boise Philharmonic. To date, over 70 orchestras have received commissions, and dozens more have performed the resulting works.

This legacy of quality and adversity has changed the way orchestras think about programming new music. And the legacy continues to grow as Meet The Composer continues to support American orchestras’ vital mission of commissioning new works.