American Music Center Presents 2000 Letters Of Distinction

The American Music Center (AMC) honors the professional accomplishments of five American leaders in contemporary music during its Annual Meeting at Lincoln Center's Stanley Kaplan Penthouse in New York City on May 1, 2000. AMC's prestigious Letter of Distinction will be presented to Composers Recordings, Inc. (CRI), John Harbison, Robert Hurwitz, Michael Tilson Thomas, and K. Robert Schwarz (in memoriam).

AMC award recipients are selected for their substantial contributions to advancing the field of contemporary American music in the United States and abroad. The American Music Center has been awarding its Letters of Distinction annually for the past 36 years. The 1999 awardees join a celebrated group of fellow composers, musicians, and organizations who have also received this honor including Philip Glass, Elliott Carter, Yo-Yo Ma, Ornette Coleman, Leonard Bernstein, John Cage, Dizzy Gillespie, George Balanchine, Milton Babbitt, Pauline Oliveros, Bette Snapp, the Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, and the American Composers Orchestra.

The American Music Center, founded by a consortium led by Aaron Copland in 1939, is the nation's oldest service organization and information center for new music. Within the past year, AMC introduced a variety of exciting new programs and services, among them NewMusicBox.org, an online catalog and print directory of new music for educators to use with young audiences, and a Professional Development Program that includes a series of workshops supporting those pursuing careers in new music. Last year, AMC's Information Services Program fielded over 35,000 requests concerning composers, performers, data, funding, and support programs. Each month, AMC publishes the Opportunity Update, a listing of opportunities in new music including calls for scores, competitions, and other new music performance information. AMC's collection of more than 60,000 scores and recordings circulates throughout the world and contains many works unavailable anywhere else. AMC, deeply involved in grantmaking to the field, also administers a number of grant programs for the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the New York State Council on the Arts, and its own program, the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program.