The 2025 Composers Now Festival highlights performances of the music of living composers throughout the month of February 2025. For the first time, the Festival is expanding from its home in New York, adding multiple cities across the US.
For the first time, The 2025 Composers Now Festival is expanding from its home in New York, adding multiple cities across the US: Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Twin Cities.
Partner organizations for this national expansion are The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) (Chicago), Miami Light Project (Miami), American Composers Forum (Twin Cities), and Wild Up (Los Angeles).
The 2025 Composers Now Festival Opening Event will take place on January 29th at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY. The concert features performances that capture the breadth and scope of music today, as well as the presentation of the Composers Now Visionary Award and the First Commission initiative.
2025 Visionary Awards
Celebrate those who shape our culture with creative excellence and advocacy for others. The 2025 Composers Now Visionary Award honors George Lewis and Paola Prestini for their extraordinary contributions to the arts.
First Commission - World Premiere
The 2025 First Commission Award was presented to Sophia Kunxu Dou, nominated by Daniel Felsenfeld, and her composer mentor, Eve Beglarian.
Witness the debut of groundbreaking work by an emerging composer. Our First Commission program supports the next generation of artists, nurturing innovation and growth. This year’s recipient and mentor will be revealed soon.
Live Performances
Experience the vibrant diversity of contemporary music with works by Daniel Blake, Geo Suquillo, Kirsten Childs, and Jennifer Curtis.
Join us as we launch the 2025 Composers Now Festival with an electrifying evening hosted by Tania León, the visionary Founder and Artistic Director of Composers Now. This event kicks off a month-long celebration spotlighting the voices of living composers across the nation.
Caroline Davis’ Portals is an immersive sound and haptic experience, drawing upon the idea of mourning and ancestral communications as textural entities.
Saxophonist and composer Jerome Sabbagh was born in Paris in 1973 and has been living in Brooklyn since 1995. A prolific forward-thinking composer, as well as a musician with a deep connection to the well of the jazz tradition, he has recorded eleven albums as a leader, and was one of Paul Motian's last saxophone players.
On Saturday, February 8th, 2025, at 7 PM, Composers Concordance presents Pizza Pizzicato at St. John's in the Village. The event will feature the virtuosic saxophonist Todd Rewoldt alongside the CompCord String Quartet, performing newly written compositions for this unique sonic combination.
Join us to celebrate NYC nostalgia and music composer Concetta Abbate's 10 year anniversary of her debut album FALLING IN TIME (Waterbug Records © 2015).
Welcome to Seasons Rituals, featuring soloists from Bridge to Everywhere, plus a new composition by Kian Ravaei performed by Rachel Iba (violin) and Kate Myers (dancer) with choreography by Annie Kahane.
Members of The Harlem Chamber Players -- violinists Ashley Horne and Claire Chan, violist William Frampton, and cellist Wayne Smith -- will perform a concert of works by past and living Black composers as well as a European classic.
To celebrate the Lunar New Year 2025, the New York Philharmonic will be led by the Chinese-born woman conductor Tianyi Lu, featuring the Korean violinist Inmo Yang, in a program featuring compositions, among others, the Chinese-American woman composer Chen Yi's violin concerto Chinese Folk Dance Suite, and the Korean woman composer Unsuk Chin's Prologue from A Mad Tea-Party, from her opera Alice in Wonderland.
Learn for life. Our group truly believes in this idea that we're all lifelong students of the music and have an extreme desire for growth. Come hear the new year's version of how we've been evolving and growing with our sound.
Originally started in the rehearsal space that would later become The Jazz Gallery, the Roy Hargrove Big Band had its inaugural performance at the Greenwich Village Jazz Festival in 1995. Since then, the band has toured domestically and internationally and has played everywhere from the Blue Note Tokyo to the Hollywood Bowl.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture presents The Harlem Chamber Players’ 17th Annual Black History Month Celebration. The featured guest artist are cellist-composer Akua Dixon and soprano Candice Hoyes. This concert will include the New York premiere of the jazz cellist-composer Akua Dixon's We The People, the last movement of which will be a world premiere, thanks to a generous grant from the Cheswatyr Foundation.
Sachal Vasandani is recognized for his singular voice, with a tone and unique phrasing that mark him as one of the most compelling artists on the scene today.
New Chamber Ballet presents the world premiere of Vox, choreographed by Miro Magloire to music by Elizabeth Gartman, along with The Density of Bones, to music by Ya-Lan Chan.
New Performance Traditions is proud to present a gripping new production of Both Eyes Open, an experimental electroacoustic opera by Brooklyn-based composer Max Giteck Duykers and Berkeley- based librettist and playwright Philip Kan Gotanda.
A Brazilian-inspired festa, to bring Miami Beach into Carnival season. Gilmar Gomes, the Brazilian percussionist and multi-instrumentalist best known for his decades-long work with Enrique Iglesias, will be joined by special guests for an evening of electic jazz-world music vibes.
Pianists Marc Peloquin and Roberto Hidalgo present a concert of works for solo piano and piano four-hands.
The program will include David Del Tredici’s “Ode to Music”, Philip Wharton’s “Water-Lore”, selections from Francis Poulenc’s “Nocturnes” as well as the complete Maurice Ravel ballet “Ma mère l’Oye” for piano four-hands, including Marc Peloquin’s arrangements of the five interludes.
Secret City is turning five! For the first time in over two years—and under its new, enchanting administration—we open the gates to a world where dreams whisper and magic dances.
The portal opens in Harlem, but its exact location will be revealed only when the time is right. Mark February 27, 28, and March 1 on your calendar and keep your heart attuned to the signs. Stay close, stay curious, and be ready to claim your key to the magic.
Guitarist, composer and MacArthur fellow Mary Halvorson has been described as “a singular talent” (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), ”NYC’s least-predictable improviser” (Howard Mandel, City Arts), “one of the most original jazz guitarists of our time” (Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily), and “one of today’s most formidable bandleaders” (Francis Davis, Village Voice).
The 2025 First Commission Award - Sophia Kunxu Dou and her mentor, Eve Beglarian.