In the 1760s a young Mozart wrote a symphony and multiple sonatas that are still played today. In the 1930s Duke Ellington penned popular songs that have had a seismic impact on jazz. And since 2012 Northwestern’s Institute for New Music has nurtured composers and performers who are shaping the present and future of music.
The institute serves as a hub for contemporary music–related activities in the Bienen School of Music. It organizes workshops, symposia and residencies for visiting composers and ensembles and gives students opportunities to interact with and learn from prominent figures in the new music world.
“The Institute for New Music brings world-renowned guest artists together with our students and faculty to collaborate on ambitious projects in Bienen’s state-of-the-art facilities,” says institute director Alex Mincek, an associate professor of composition and music technology.
Northwestern has grown in stature as a leader in new music. Every two years the school awards the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition to a contemporary classical composer, bringing renowned musicians such as Jennifer Higdon, Tania León and Steve Reich to the Evanston Campus.
The institute also hosts the Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC!), which biennially convenes composers, performers, scholars and other new music advocates for an intensive weekend of workshops, panel discussions and concerts. Featuring guest composer and trombonist George Lewis and the International Contemporary Ensemble, this year’s event also will highlight performers from Northwestern’s jazz studies program for the first time, “in an effort to more fully integrate and showcase the breadth of creative activity taking place within Bienen,” Mincek says.
The excitement of discovering novel work by boundary-pushing composers and hearing that work performed by stellar Bienen musicians draws audiences to such events. It also can inspire philanthropy, which is critical to the institute’s success, allowing it to host “some of the most adventurous artists of our time, who work side by side with our student ensembles and composers in an open, risk-taking manner,” Mincek notes.
“We’re interested in new music because of the possibilities,” says Trine Sorensen, chair of Bienen’s Music Advisory Board. She and her husband, Michael Jacobson, made an endowed gift in 2021 that supports both NUNC! and the institute. The couple lives in Silicon Valley, and Sorensen says their proximity to the tech world may be why, as concertgoers, they enjoy taking chances on music they haven’t heard — and want to invest in innovative composers.
“There is something about the possibility of the unknown that is similar to a startup, where you’re really not sure if it’s going to take off,” she says. “But that’s OK, because it’s taking that leap forward and saying, ‘I want to be a part of that. I want to understand it.’”
Learn more about NUNC!
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