Composers' Forum (U.S.)

Frank Wigglesworth (1918-1996) was an American composer, educator, and champion of new music.

The Composers' Forum was founded in New York by Ashley Pettis in 1935. Funded by the Federal Music Project (a division of the Works Progress Administration), its goal was to present the work of emerging American composers; in its early years it was also known as the Composers' Forum-Laboratory. The Forum's first concert was held on October 30th, 1935, and by 1940 more than 1600 works had been presented. For much of its history, concerts featured moderated question-and-answer sessions with the composers; the questions taken from the audience.

When the WPA was shut down, the organization moved in 1940 to San Francisco under private patronage. It continued for two seasons before World War II temporarily halted its activities. It was revived in 1947 under the joint sponsorship of the New York Public Library and Columbia University. The chief of the Library's Music Division, Carleton Sprague-Smith, played a large role in the direction of the Forum in those years. From 1951 to 1960 the organization was led by the composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks. The composers Frank Wigglesworth and Jack Beeson oversaw the organization in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The Composers' Forum closed its doors around 2003. Today organizations presenting and performing new music exist in various cities around the United States and in other countries (sometimes even using the same name); however the Composers' Forum was among the first of its kind and was for many years one of the only performance outlets available for contemporary composers.

Source: B.C. Vermeersch. "Composers' Forum." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/42750 (accessed February 14, 2012).