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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES FORUM continued from page 17 "We were both interested in growing some kind of community where composers – anybody who called themselves a composer – could be part of the community," Larsen explains. "All the programs we developed were done with as much integrity as we could muster, always for the community of composers and their audiences. Ideas that came from the community were then developed for the community." Larsen and Paulus learned that by helping others, they were also helping themselves – by fostering an environment in which opportunities for composers would be a natural part of the landscape. At the same time, they realized that the organization they created was playing an increasingly prominent role in this effort. In 1980, Larsen served on the New Music Performance Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. "Through that experience I became aware of the diversity of groups creating, performing, and promoting new music in vital, invocative ways," Larsen wrote in a Forum newsletter commentary that year. "What struck me most was the place the Minnesota Composers Forum has in the national spectrum of activities. On reflection, I can say that the Forum is leading the way in developing programs to meet the needs of the music community, as a whole, and composers," she concluded. In 1982, the Forum hosted the first national conference for composers' service organizations, with the state purpose of "exchanging information between service organizations with the intent of increasing opportunities for American composers." Dubbed the Lyman Conference, this gathering included both national groups such as the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and the International League of Women Composers, as well as regional groups such as the Chicago Society of Composers, the Composers Guild of Utah, and the New York Composers Forum. In 1983, ten years after they had founded the Forum, Larsen and Paulus were selected by the New York-based Meet The Composer for that organization's recently-begun Composersin-Residence program with major American orchestras. That Larsen-Paulus joint residency with The Minnesota Orchestra resulted in a Nonesuch recording of Larsen's "Symphony: Water Music" and Paulus's "Symphony in Three Movements" led by its then-Music Director 18 PAN PIPES WINTER 2011 sai-national.org Neville Marriner. By the mid 1980's, as their careers developed on a national scale, Larsen and Paulus continued to stay involved with the Forum as board members, but increasingly day-to-day operations and program management was being managed by others, and the organization had hired a managing director to oversee programs, staff, and budget. Lila Jacobs, a non-composer who had previously worked for the Children's Theater in Minneapolis, served as the Forum's managing director from 1980-1988. "When I was hired," Jacobs recalled in a 1986 Forum newsletter interview, "it was to be an office assistant, to run the office. But between the time [Larsen and Paulus] first talked to me and got around to hiring me, the staff and the board had realized that they needed more than someone to just write the checks. They needed a director. That is indicative of the growth that the Forum was about to take." In 1983, the Forum's annual budget was $207,500. $44,000 was spent on administration (including two salaries for a managing director and fundraiser); $22,000 was spent on communications (including the cost of publishing and mailing a monthly newsletter, concert publicity, and a communication director's salary); $48,000 for concert productions (concert at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Landmark Center in Saint Paul, plus a concert manager's salary); and targeted program funds ($18,500 for the Forum's own "Meet the composer" program; $51,500 for McKnight composer fellowships; and $23,500 for the Jerome Composers Commissioning Fund. As for Carol Barnett, she recalls: "I wrote one piece in 1983, 'Voices' for soprano and guitar.  It was my second JCCP commission.  I was also busy playing flute in the pit at the Children's Theatre in Minneapolis, being a music copyist, and going to concerts.  The Forum was a major part of my life, not just because of the JCCP commission.  It was a support system, a group of friends, a presenter of concerts that engaged us all in discussion and spurred us on to take advantage of the opportunities for performances.  My 'career' was aided by the Forum not only in the obvious ways — the commission and performances — but by providing contacts for copying jobs.  It all developed gradually, and the Forum was a great incubator." In 1986, spurred on by a NEA Advancement Grant, the Forum began raising funds for an endowment fund. As Lila Jacobs explained at the time, "We don't think 5 or 10 years down the line; even though all the books say you're supposed to. It's just unrealistic. We're so dependent on the funding community, that if it dries up, I don't know what we'll do. But we do think 2 and 3 years ahead. We could have chosen to not set up the endowment, to do something different, but we chose to. We need the stability factor of the endowment now." Even so, considering the Forum's rapid growth during its initial decade of existence, in 1986 Forum newsletter commentary, Stephen Paulus dubbed the late 1970's and early 1980's as a "Golden Era" for composers: "So many of us find this an exceptional and exciting time in which to be living and writing music. Not too long ago I received a letter from Elie Siegmeister. In it he said, 'Boy are you guys ever lucky. You are able to write for orchestras and hear your works all over the place. Back when I was getting started we thought we were doing great if we could get to hear a three-minute piece for piccolo in Brooklyn.'" "I think he is quite right," concluded Paulus. "We are lucky. But I also think the time is right for one to be a composer. The music and the opportunities seem to be working hand in glove to create a whole exciting climate of adventure and collaboration." Thirty-five years later, the regional band of grad students that started with a $400 student activities grant and a few dozen members had grown into national organization with close to 2000 members and a budget near 2 million dollars. The funding environment for all arts organizations has changed dramatically since the 1970's, but the Forum has proven itself adept at surviving and adapting its programs and projects for composers to the ever-shifting landscape of funding and artists' needs. While the Forum cannot claim to have single-handedly ushered in a new "Golden Age" for composers, over its 35+ years of existence, it has continued to foster a wider sense of community and still strives to help composers carve out for themselves their own creative role of "adventure and collaboration" in that community. CLICK FOR MORE For more information, visit carolbarnett.net, libbylarsen. com, stephenpaulus.com and composersforum.org

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