In January 2000, Meet the Composer announced five new sites for Round VII of New Residencies. The composers initiated their residencies in March, and in June the six recipients met in San Francisco with members from previous Rounds to discuss ways of maximizing the New Residencies program. The theme of the NR2000 conference was Supporting Creation and Creating Support.

Dwight Andrews

Dwight Andrews: Philadelphia, PA/Camden, NJ
In New Residencies Round VII, composer Dwight Andrews will work in partnership with the Prince Music Theater, the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center in Camden, and the Camden Creative Arts High School in the Philadelphia/Camden area, in manifold ways. Among the residency goals are to cement the organizations' relationships with African-American artists and scholars in the region, attract larger minority audiences to the arts, and help to forge new alliances between Philadelphia and South Jersey audiences and schools. Of equal importance is the development of new work reflective of the communities' needs. To that end, Mr. Andrews will participate in the Rainbow Connection, the Prince Music Theater's outreach program for 11- to 14-year-olds, in which their own stories and lyrics are set to music. Many of Mr. Andrews's activities within the community will revolve around his new music/theater work, HAITI, HARLEM AND HAVANA, which will be accompanied by workshops, study guides, and post-performance discussions with the composer.

Ernest Dawkins

Ernest Dawkins: Chicago, IL
A Chicago native, jazz composer Ernest Khabeer Dawkins's New Residencies project will be based in the Englewood community on the south side of Chicago in partnership with four host organizations: the Museum of Contemporary Art, Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago, the Community Film Workshop of Chicago, and the Chicago Park District. Through this residency, Mr. Dawkins will work to develop a community jazz band and a composers mentoring program. He will teach classes for young people throughout the park district; mentor new young artists in Muntu's Performing Arts Institute; and compose a new work celebrating the distinctiveness of the community. Through these activities, as well as workshops and community forums, Mr. Dawkins hopes to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of jazz and to affirm the important role that composers and musicians can play in the life of the community.

Oliver Lake

Oliver Lake: Bloomfield/Montclair/Newark, NJ
Oliver Lake is a composer, saxophonist, and poet who has always found a natural connection between his work as an artist and his involvement in a geographic or artistic community. In his New Residencies partnership with Bloomfield College, Dreamcatcher Repertory Theater, the Renaissance School/Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts in Montclair, and the Discovery School in Newark, Mr. Lake will work in several disciplines-such as music composition, poetry, and live performance-with people of all ages, including other artists, students, faculty, as well as the general public. Throughout his residency, Mr. Lake will compose a variety of works to support the Communal Memories Project of Bloomfield College and the two schools, including two 30-minute suites for Big Band and smaller-scale musical and spoken-word pieces for performance by a wide range of groups. Additional activities will include the collection of oral histories from Essex County residents, scoring music f or the collected histories, and setting excerpts of the collected texts to music. He will also compose incidental music for one Dreamcatcher mainstage production each year. This music and the Communal Memories Project will form the basis of an evening-length, multi-disciplinary work to be presented at the culmination of his three-year residency. As an ambassador to the larger community, Mr. Lake will give lectures and demonstrations to a wide variety of artistic and civic organizations.

Nathaniel Stookey

Nathaniel Stookey: Raleigh/Durham/Wake/Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Nathaniel Stookey and his New Residencies partners-The North Carolina Symphony, WUNC Radio, the Mallarme Chamber Players, and The Ciompi Quartet-are all looking to build on the successes of two pilot projects created by Mr. Stookey for WUNC. For his "Classroom-to-Concert Hall" series, he enlisted several local professional ensembles to give free performances to schoolchildren who completed group composition workshops. "Composers-in-Context," a series of radio forums for North Carolina composers and ensembles, has been broadcast by WUNC. The New Residencies partners are now looking to cast their musical net even wider than the Raleigh/Chapel Hill/Durham triangle, in an effort to spark an interest in new music, an awareness of North Carolina composers, and regular attendance at live concerts. Mr. Stookey's first residency composition will be a fanfare premiered by the North Carolina Symphony to herald its move to its new Meymandi Concert Hall. It will include material Mr. Stookey composed in collaboration with three area high schools. His second work will require participation by North Carolina elementary school children for the Symphony's education program, and he will also compose a full-length work to be premiered in 2002.

Jon Jang Photo: Francisco Garcia

Francis Wong Photo: Andy Nozaka

Jon Jang and Francis Wong: San Francisco
Composer/musi-
cians Jon Jang and Francis Wong, both deeply-rooted in the Asian-American communities of the San Francisco Bay area, will jointly work in partnership with the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Asian Improv aRts, and Melody of China to employ music to create a cultural bridge to bring together the many different members of the community-immigrant and American-born, Asian and non-Asian. This residency will reflect their philosophy, which draws from diverse heritages and seeks to increase audiences, performances, and educational opportunities, as well as increase interaction and dialogue, especially among young people and immigrant populations. New works to be created during the residency include an extended music work called Oaktown Chinatown by Jon Jang, which will serve as a musical diary of his collaborative work with Francis Wong, Melody of China, and other musicians and ensembles with whom he has worked. Francis Wong will compose three installments of his composition cycle La Chine Africaine, which looks at Chinese-Americans and African-Americans in the context of social upheaval and will be reflective of the multicultural character of the East Bay of the 60s and 70s. The composers will also develop a community arts participation model for the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, which will include a range of activities for composers outside the concert hall, such as technique classes, workshops, and educational symposia. The residency will also initiate a new annual Oaktown Chinatown Music Festival, the first formal festival of Pan Asian, multi-genre music in the Bay Area.