Since 2007, ISSUE has partnered with MATA to present works developed and produced by young participants in MATA’s Curatorial Associate program, which features emerging composers and performers using software instruments, using video as a parallel practice, and rethinking the notion of chamber ensemble in the digital age to map areas where the traditional and the experimental coexist.
MATA is a not-for-profit organization that commissions, presents, and supports the music of a wide array of young composers from around the globe. MATA’s directors are motivated by a desire to create community among composers in the early stages of their careers, especially those whose work does not fit into existing institutions. In providing developing composers with professional performances of their work and valuable connections to colleagues, MATA is a catalyst for their entry into American musical life.
Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996, MATA presents a week-long festival of music by composers under age forty each spring in New York City. Each festival presents up to thirty works by young composers, at least three to four of which are newly commissioned. To date, MATA has commissioned seventy works, and has presented over three-hundred performances of pieces by young composers. Commissioned works have been scored for a broad range of ensembles: from orchestra to solo voice, live electronics to gamelan ensemble. Performers on past MATA festivals have included: the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gamelan Son of Lion, The Knights Chamber Orchestra, So Percussion, L’Arsenale (Italy), Signal, JACK Quartet, Quartet New Generation, Calder Quartet, Argento Ensemble, Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne, Either/Or, NOW Ensemble, Newspeak, VOX Vocal Ensemble, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and many more.
