Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • WINTER 2018 • sai-national.org 14 works by eleven different composers. at year saw two more concerts, including one that featured the music of John Cage. It was at this event that the name, the Baltimore Composers Forum first appeared. Four events in 1994 were held at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels Great Hall and six events were held in 1995, two of these at the First Universalist Unitarian Church of Baltimore. By 1996, the membership had grown to 50 composers, and each of the five concerts was held at a different venue. at trend continued in 1997, with six performances being held at various locations. e venues expanded to Goucher College, the Creative Alliance, University of Maryland Baltimore Campus, and An die Musik. In addition, Baltimore Composers Forum programmed reading sessions as well as collaborations with dance ensembles and choreographers, and was represented twice on Maryland Public Television. In addition, the Baltimore Composers Forum presented works by international composers and had works performed by international ensembles. Garth Baxter, the "dean" of Baltimore Composers Forum and an unabashed lyrically tonal composer, has been with the group for ten years and served for three years on the board. He remembers that when he first joined, the concerts were rather freely put together with composers finding performers for their pieces. "e outcome," says Garth, "was oen varied in quality." Ljiljana Jovanovic, who writes more open-ended, improvisational works, has been involved with BCF for fieen years and has served on the board for seven years, remembers the same thing. Both Ljiljana and Garth were responsible for guiding the group to change the way performing groups and the submitted compositions were selected so as to insure a higher level of professional performances. A Unique Model Consequently, now the Baltimore Composers Forum first plans its concerts by polling members as to what ensembles they are interested in writing for; based on that feedback, the board selects a particular professional musical ensemble from those recommended by the members. Over the past few years featured groups have been: the Daraja Ensemble (woodwind quintet), Lyric Brass Quintet, Azimuth String Quartet, oboe guest soloist and IKTUS Percussion Ensemble, Atlantic Reed Consort, a horn and marimba duet from Wright State University, and a local trio of soprano, tenor, and piano. Once the featured group is selected, composer members submit compositions to the ensemble for consideration, and it alone selects the works to be performed. For most concerts composers are given a limit of writing a work for between six and eight minutes, and can write for any permutation of the instrumentation of the ensemble (if a string quartet, composers have the options of writing solos for one of the members, duets, trios or for the entire quartet). e ensemble then shapes the program of an hour or so according to their aesthetic judgment. Sometimes a composer's work is not chosen for the program, and while that has occasionally been a sensitive issue, for the most part the decision of the performers is accepted as fair and unbiased way of selecting works for performance. e writer of this article has been involved with this group for five years and was president for two years. For one concert, during my presidency, my submitted work was not selected by the featured group. While they thought the piece excellent (I had had a very good recent performance of the work by another ensemble), it was too difficult to perform given the time allotted for rehearsals. So, practical considerations, such as the amount of time available for rehearsals, become a factor in the selection of the programmed works. is unique model has worked quite well for the composers and the featured groups. While the Baltimore Composers Forum has a very limited budget for its concerts, receiving funding from small grants, a few donations, and ticket sales, it has been able to employ excellent professional groups because of the good relationship developed between the composers and the featured group, one of mutual respect and engagement. e featured group is given the autonomy to shape a program based on the pieces submitted, and the composers for the most part accept the performers' decisions. Once the program is decided, the composers of the selected works may schedule a rehearsal with the group, if they wish, and exchange ideas about the pieces being performed. Before the concert there is usually some limited time available for the composers and performers to go over the pieces together one last time and aer the concert the performers are invited to a reception in their honor where the audience, performers, and composers can mingle and talk about the concert. In addition, in a number of instances the featured groups have also played some of the selected compositions on their own future concerts. Funding and Attendance e Baltimore Composers Forum has struggled both with funding and attendance, but has kept going for 25 years through the dedication COMPOSERS

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