Ten Collegiate Composition Students Will Be Chosen to Create Works for wild Up and Attend Three-Day Program in Conjunction with LA Phil’s Next on Grand: Contemporary Americans Festival

Los Angeles  (January 15, 2015) – The Los Angeles Philharmonic today announced Next on Grand: National Composers Intensive, a three-day immersive program that offers the opportunity for selected American composition students to develop their craft by creating new works for wild Up, an L.A.-based modern music collective. Participants will also attend LA Phil concerts and work with esteemed composers featured on Next on Grand: Contemporary Americans. The National Composers Intensive takes place in Los Angeles, May 28 – 30, 2015.

The National Composers Intensive demonstrates the LA Phil’s ongoing commitment to new music by providing access and opportunity for today’s talented young musicians to further explore and hone their craft.

“The LA Phil’s investment in contemporary music reaches far beyond the concert hall stage,” says Deborah Borda, President and CEO, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.  “The National Composers Intensive, a broadening of our Composer Fellowship Program, brings together exceptional collegiate composers with the renowned modern music collective wild Up and our Next on Grand Festival, creating a rich learning environment and an opportunity to nurture the next generation of American composers.”

Director of the LA Phil’s Composer Fellowship Program and award-winning composer James Matheson said, “I’m thrilled to see the LA Phil expand our offerings to include collegiate composers and I look forward to working with them during the Intensive in May.”

“All of us in wild Up are interested in finding future paths for classical music that make our art form thrive,” said Chris Rountree, founder, conductor and creative director of wild Up. “We are thrilled to work together with the LA Phil to search for that future, providing an experience for these ten young composers unlike any education program that exists - one in which attendees work alongside wild Up and legendary mentor composers to quickly create, intensely edit, and produce powerful new work.”

The Next on Grand: National Composers Intensive is open to undergraduate and master’s degree composition students currently studying in the United States. Today through Sunday, February 15, students may apply online at http://laphil.com/NatlComposersIntensiveApp. Ten students will be selected by an anonymous panel of composers and musicians to participate in the program. The LA Phil will cover travel and room and board expenses.

Program Highlights:

• Program highlights for the ten composers selected to participate include:
• Create new work for wild Up
• Attend LA Phil Next on Grand: Contemporary Americans concerts and observe dress rehearsals
• Rehearse new work directly with wild Up musicians
• Work individually with renowned guest composers featured on Next on Grand: Contemporary Americans concerts
• Receive professional recording of wild Up performing their new work

The Composer Fellowship Program, an innovative two-year program, the only one of its kind, gives young composers ages 13-18 the tools and the freedom to shape the future of music through an intensive multi-year curriculum including individual and group instruction, access to world-class artists, and two LA Phil premieres.

The Next on Grand festival is a collaboration across Grand Avenue’s arts corridor – including The Music Center, LA Opera, Center Theatre Group and more to be announced – that converges upon a creative force or cultural element. For this inaugural festival, the LA Phil embraces the theme of Contemporary Americans by focusing on the wildly creative music being made by American composers, both established (i.e., Reich, Glass, Wolfe, Lang, Gordon) and those with careers-in-the-making (Norman, Shaw, Dessner, etc.). Led by Gustavo Dudamel, the range of programs include 9 world premieres, including Pulitzer Prize-winning music, video installations, vocal, chamber and orchestral music, as well as such guest performers as the Labèque sisters and the Calder Quartet.

wild Up is the Los Angeles contemporary music ensemble heralded as “Searing. Penetrating. And thrilling” by Fred Child of Performance Today and “Magnificent” by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times. Led by Artistic Director Christopher Rountree, the 24-piece group blurs the borders between classical music, rock and performance art, believing music is a catalyst for shared experience, and that a concert venue is a place to excite, challenge and provoke a community of listeners. Since forming in 2010, wild Up has collaborated with orchestras, rock bands and cultural institutions around the world.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, under the vibrant leadership of Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, presents an inspiring array of music from all genres – orchestral, chamber and Baroque music, organ and celebrity recitals, new music, jazz, world music and pop – at two of L.A.’s iconic venues, Walt Disney Concert Hall (www.laphil.com) and the Hollywood Bowl (www.hollywoodbowl.com). The LA Phil’s season at Walt Disney Concert Hall extends from September through May, and throughout the summer at the Hollywood Bowl. With the preeminent Los Angeles Philharmonic at the foundation of its offerings, the LA Phil aims to enrich and transform lives through music, with a robust mix of artistic, education and community programs.

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