10th Anniversary: Composer & Poet Workshop plus Archival Recording Session
Orchestrating the 21st Century
June 8-13, 2027 I Troy, NY
For ten years, the Albany Symphony's Orchestrating the 21st Century program has helped shape the next generation of American composers through intensive mentorship, hands-on orchestral experience, and direct collaboration with leading artists in the field.
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the program expands beyond composition to welcome emerging poets, creating a unique interdisciplinary experience that brings together music and language in the creation of brand-new works.
Applications open now
Program Highlights:
Study with acclaimed composer and Yale professor Christopher Theofanidis.
Study with acclaimed poet, librettist, and educator Melissa Studdard, author of Dear Selection Committee and I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast.
Work alongside Albany Symphony Music Director David Alan Miller and guest artists of the American Music Festival.
Attend concerts, rehearsals, seminars, and masterclasses during the Albany Symphony's American Music Festival.
Receive a professional archival recording performed by musicians of the GRAMMY-winning Albany Symphony.
Have your work presented during the Festival's signature First Draughts Reading Session.
Join a growing network of program alumni whose work is helping define the future of American music.
About the Workshop:
Each year, emerging composers are selected by Christopher Theofanidis and David Alan Miller for an immersive residency focused on orchestral composition, artistic development, and professional mentorship. The workshop brings participants inside the creative life of the American Music Festival, providing unparalleled access to rehearsals, performances, faculty, guest composers, and Albany Symphony musicians.
In honor of the program's 10th anniversary, six poets will join twelve composers in a new collaborative track that explores the creative possibilities between poetry and music. Through workshops and mentorship, Studdard guides participants in collaborative creation, text setting, and the intersection of poetry, storytelling, and contemporary music.
Over several months leading up to the Festival, poets and composers will work together to develop new pieces inspired by selected poems, culminating in public readings, performances, and an archival recording session during the residency.
Daily activities include score study, masterclasses, artistic discussions, professional development sessions, and opportunities to engage directly with leaders across the orchestral field. Participants gain valuable insight into contemporary orchestral practice while building lasting artistic relationships and expanding their creative voice.
The residency culminates with the First Draughts Reading Session, where newly created works are rehearsed, performed, and professionally recorded by Albany Symphony musicians. This signature event offers participants the rare opportunity to hear their work performed, receive immediate artistic feedback, and leave with a professional archival recording.
Eligibility & Fees
All applicants must be U.S. citizens or individuals lawfully residing or studying full-time in the United States.
Composer Track
Applications are open to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and recent graduates in composition from across the United States.
$700 participation fee
Full workshop access including all American Music Festival performances and rehearsals
Professional development sessions
Eligibility to submit a new work for the First Draughts Reading Session Eligibility & Fees
Poet Track
Poets in New York State are invited to apply. Applications are open to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and recent graduates in composition or poetry in New York State.
$500 participation fee
Workshops and masterclasses focused on writing for music and interdisciplinary collaboration
Attend all performances during American Music Festival
Opportunity to collaborate with composers on new works presented during the Festival
Auditor Option
$300 participation fee. Note if you wish to apply to audit only in your application.
Scholarships
There is limited scholarship funding available. Please write to Lily at lilyw@albanysymphony.com at the time of your application with a short paragraph describing why a scholarship would make a difference for you to apply for assistance.
Travel, housing, and most meals are not included. Discounted hotel rates are available through Albany Symphony partner hotels.
About Christopher Theofanidis
Christopher Theofanidis has had performances by many leading orchestras from around the world, including the London Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Moscow Soloists, the National, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies, among many others. He has also served as Composer of the Year for the Pittsburgh Symphony during their 2006-07 season, for which he wrote a violin concerto for Sarah Chang.
Mr. Theofanidis holds degrees from Yale, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Houston, and has been the recipient of the International Masterprize, the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Fulbright fellowship to France to study with Tristan Mural at IRCAM, a Tanglewood fellowship, and two fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy award for best composition for his chorus and orchestra work, The Here and Now, based on the poetry of Rumi, and in 2017 for his bassoon concerto. His orchestral work, Rainbow Body, has been one of the most performed new orchestral works of the new millennium, having been performed by over 150 orchestras internationally.
Mr. Theofanidis’ has written a ballet for the American Ballet Theatre, a work for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as part of their ‘New Brandenburg’ series, and two operas for the San Francisco and Houston Grand Opera companies. Thomas Hampson sang the lead role in the San Francisco opera. His work for Houston, The Refuge, featurs six sets of international non-Western musicians alongside the opera musicians. He has a long-standing relationship with the Atlanta Symphony and Maestro Robert Spano, and has just four recordings with them, including his concert length oratorio, Creation/Creator, which was featured at the SHIFT festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. this year with the ASO, chorus, and soloists. His work, Dreamtime Ancestors, for the orchestral consortium, New Music for America, has been played by over fifty orchestras over the past two seasons. He has served as a delegate to the US-Japan Foundation’s Leadership Program, and he is a former faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University as well as the Juilliard School. Mr. Theofanidis is currently a professor at Yale University, and composer-in-residence and co-director of the composition program at the Aspen Music Festival.
About Melissa Studdard
Melissa Studdard is the author of many books, including the poetry collections Dear Selection Committee and I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast. Her work has been featured by NPR, PBS, The New York Times, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, Best American Poetry, and Houston Matters, and has also appeared in a wide variety of periodicals, such as POETRY, Kenyon Review, Psychology Today, New Ohio Review, Harvard Review, New England Review, and Poets & Writers.
As a librettist/lyricist, she has had works commissioned by Aspen Music Festival, Yale University Glee Club and Yale Choral Artists, Wolf Trap, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Nicolò Spera, the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, and Art Philly, and her pieces have been or will soon be performed by Roomful of Teeth, Exigence Vocal Ensemble, The Washington Chorus, Kantorei, University of Michigan Chamber Choir, Ars Nova Singers, The Argus String Quartet, Electric Earth, and Ciompi Quartet.
A short film of the title poem from Studdard’s I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast (by Dan Sickles of Moxie Pictures for Motionpoems) was an official selection for the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, as well as winner of the REEL Poetry Festival Audience Choice Award. Other poems of Studdard’s have been made into car magnets, decals, telepoem booth recordings, reed diffusers, broadsides, origami bouquets, and Houston City Banners and have won or placed in prizes such as The Lucille Medwick Memorial Award for a poem on a humanitarian theme and the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from The Poetry Society of America, The Penn Review Poetry Prize, Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize from The Missouri Review, the Tom Howard Prize from Winning Writers, The Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize from Munster Literature Centre, and Aesthetica magazine Creative Writing Award.
Her book awards include the Forward National Literature Award, the International Book Award, the Kathak Literary Award, the Poiesis Award of Honor International, the Readers’ Favorite Award, and two Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards. As well, her works have been listed in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts’ Best Books of the Year, January Magazine’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, Bustle’s “8 Feminist Poems To Inspire You When The World Is Just Too Much,” and Amazon’s Top New Releases and Most Gifted Books.
In addition to writing, Studdard is a past president of the Associated Writing Program’s Women’s Caucus and is former executive producer and host of VIDA Voices & Views for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. With Kelli Russell Agodon, she hosts the youtube podcast Poems You Need.
She is grateful for residencies at The Betsy-South Beach (sponsored by SWWIM), The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Centrum, and Desert Rat.