Living Music Summit | The Boston New Music Initiative

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The Boston New Music Initiative was thrilled to present its inaugural Living Music Summit. The summit is a series of concerts, workshops, industry roundtables, and networking events designed to promote all aspects of BNMI’s central mission of supporting and advancing the careers of its members in the field of new music. The 2023 Living Music Summit will consist of several online series, including the Composer Interview Series, the Salon Series and the Workshop Series, but will not include the larger festival at the end of the year. We hope to return with a festival in 2024.

DONATE here to help us make this season's event a reality!

The Living Music Summit is made possible in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Composer Interview Series

Join us for the next installment Composer Interview Series will be announced soon!

Past Composer Interviews

Our interview with Leah Reid and Osnat Netzer and the complete Season 13 Composer Interview Series with Gabriel Bolaños, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Ingrid Stölzel and Melika M. Fitzhugh are available to all Shout It Out members as part of our professional development archive.

Salon Series

The Salon Series is back!

The next installment will be on January 6 at 12:30pm and hosted by Taibah Orpin. Members will have the opportunity to present their works in a panel-style discussion to other composers and a general audience.

Presenting is free for Shout It Out members or $5 for Whisper In Your Ear members. A maximum of 3 presenters can register (a waitlist option will be available).

Attendance for the general audience (i.e. without presenting) is free, but will be capped at 15.

Register here today.

Workshop Series

Past Workshop Series

Social Media and Marketing for Musicians

October 16, 2022 at 3:30pm ET

Join Trisha Craig and BNMI on zoom for an hour of life changing marketing and social media advice! Say goodbye to the self-fulfilling "starving artist" myth! If you love BNMI's social media feeds, you will love this workshop!

Trisha Craig is the Business Consultant for Creatives as Entrepeneurs. Watch the video here!

Workshop: Writing for Recorder

As part of the Living Music Summit, BNMI hosted a virtual workshop on writing for recorder with Frances Blaker and Melika M. Fitzhugh and a reading session with Emily O'Brien. See our resources page for videos.

Photo by Heather Carter

Frances Blaker

Frances Blaker is a recorder player with performance and pedagogy degrees from the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, during which time she began to compose though mostly as a way of increasing her understanding music. Ms. Blaker began composing seriously in the early 2000’s. She has since been awarded month-long residencies focusing on music composition at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon in April 2003, 2006, and 2011. She has received commissions to compose works for Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel Valley, CA, and the Oregon Coast Recorder Society, as well as from individuals. Her most recent commission was given in April of 2020 specifically because the commissioning group realized that, in the early days of the Pandemic, musicians were suffering the loss of all their performing and teaching dates. The commission was to write a duet for recorder and double bass. This led to Seven Short Pieces which will be published in 2022 by Lost in Time Press. Other compositions have been published by Lost in Time Press and PRB Productions.

Melika M. Fitzhugh

A native of Stafford, Virginia, Melika M. Fitzhugh (A.B. Harvard-Radcliffe, M.M. Longy School of Music of Bard College) studied conducting and composition with Thomas G. Everett, Beverly Taylor, James Yannat os, Roger Marsh, Jeff Stadelman, and, most recently, John Howell Morrison. Mel's compositions have been performed internationally by the PHACE Ensemble, Quarteto Larianna, the Brouwer Trio, Sarah Jeffery, Radcliffe Choral Society, Berit Strong, John Tyson, Miyuki Tsurutani, and Aldo Abreu. The artist, also afilm and stage composer, is currently a member of world/early music ensembles Urban Myth, Balkan Fields, and the Quilisma Consort.

Workshop: Writing for Marimba

As part of the Living Music Summit, BNMI will be hosting a virtual workshop on writing for marimba with Matthew Sharrock of Transient Canvas and Hinge Ensemble. Join us on June 5 at 11am ET to learn about writing for marimba. Matt will read and give feedback on submitted works.

Workshop: Writing for Violin and Viola

As part of the Living Music Summit, BNMI hosted a Workshop on Writing for Violin and Viola on June 19. Full members can access a recording of the workshop from our resources page.

Workshop: Biography Writing

Thanks to everyone who participated! Professional ghost writer John Hong gave us all some wonderful tips. The recording is available to full members.

Panel: Social Media and Web Presence for Musicians

Thanks to everyone who participated in our panel! We had two special guests, Rachel Abrams, a mezzo-soprano and social media coordinator for Hartford Opera Theater, and Taylor Rossi, a flutist and marketing and web-design specialist. Once available, a recording of the panel is available to full members.

Concerts TBD