Key Developments

1976-77 • Inaugural concert in Alice Tully Hall, broadcast on National Public Radio and Voice of America.

1978-79 • Pulitzer Prize awarded for ACO-commissioned work, Aftertones of Infinity by Joseph Schwantner. • ASCAP gives ACO first award for adventuresome programming.

1979-80 • ACO-commissioned Piano Concerto by John Harbison wins Kennedy Center Friedheim Award.

1980-81 • The American Music Center awards ACO its first “Letter of Distinction.”

1981-82 • Time and Newsweek pick ACO’s Elliott Carter recording under the baton of Paul Lustig Dunkel as among “Year’s Ten Best.”

1982-83 • Ellen Taaffe Zwilich becomes first woman composer to receive Pulitzer Prize for ACO-commissioned work, Symphony No. 1. • NEA awards Challenge grant to initiate endowment fund.

1983-84 • The American Academy of Arts and Letters awards ACO a special award for “the cause of American music.”

1985-86 • The orchestra’s subscription season at Carnegie Hall, attendance doubles, and subscriptions triple.

1987-88 • NEA awards second Challenge grant of $150,000 to augment endowment.

1988-89 • ACO hosts Composer in Residence, Robert Beaser, through Meet The Composer Orchestra Residencies Program. • ACO holds its first reading sessions of works by emerging composers, through the American Symphony Orchestra League’s New Music Project.

1989-90 • New annual radio series debuts nationally over the American Public Radio Network. • Hovhaness/Harrison recording makes Billboard Classical Music charts for three months. • First national television appearance in the Guggenheim “Works and Process” series.

1990-91 • BMI honors ACO with an award for “Outstanding Contribution to American Music.”

1991-92 • ACO signs multi-disc agreement with London Records’ ARGO label. • Dennis Russell Davies appointed Music Director after serving as Principal Conductor for 16 years.

1992-93 • ACO performs opening concert of American Symphony Orchestra League’s Conference in Carnegie Hall.

1993-94 • Inauguration of Sonidos de las Américas Festival of Latin American music. • First youth concerts given in collaboration with Carnegie Hall’s Link Up! education program. • New Music Reading Sessions made an ongoing part of ACO’s annual program with five-year support from The Helen F. Whitaker Fund.

1994-95 • NEA awards third Challenge Grant of $320,000 in support ofSonidos de las Américas. • ASCAP awards ACO Morton Gould Award for innovative programming.

1995-96 • Harrison/Ung/McPhee recording on ARGO selected as “Best of the Month” by Stereo Review. 1996-97 • Carnegie Hall invites ACO to plan special series celebrating America in the millennium. 1997-98 • ACO “comes of age” with its 21st season, and 75th concert. • Recording of Philip Glass’s Heroes Symphony is released to wide acclaim, quickly becoming ACO’s best-selling album ever.

1998-99 • ACO launches 20th Century Snapshots a multi-year series exploring American music in the Millennium. • ACO presents Sonidos de las Américas: Cuba, a festival of Cuban music in collaboration with more than a dozen community and arts organizations, culminating six years of planning and research. • ACO wins 22nd ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and is singled out as the “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States.”

1999-00 • ACO launches Composer OutFront Series featuring composer-performers in new informal crossover events. • Emerging Composer Fellowships established: new extended professional development opportunities for emerging composers. • Music Factory: Composers in the Schools debuts, bringing composers into New York City elementary and high schools, exploring the process of creating music. • ECM records releases The Seasons, ACO’s album of music by John Cage. • ACO conceives the Orchestra Technology Initiative, a multi-year program exploring the application of digital technology in orchestral composition and performance. • ACO receives ASCAP’s Morton Gould Award for innovative programming for its 20th Century Snapshots series.

2000-01 • Steven Sloane, appointed Music Director Designate, to succeed Dennis Russell Davies, beginning in 2002. • ACO inauguratesComing to America: Immigrant Sounds/Immigrant Voices, exploring the constant evolution of American music through the work of immigrant composers. The project is selected by Americans for the Arts as one of 16 model performing arts programs in the country for integrating the arts into civic dialogue.

2001-02 • ACO convenes national conference on technology and the orchestra, bringing together composers, technologists and music professionals for artistic and technological exchange. • ACO celebrates its first 25 years with new commissions made possible by ASCAP and BMI. • ACO Oral History Project commences in collaboration with Yale University, documents ACO’s role in American music over the last 25 years. • ACO receives ASCAP’s Jonathan S. Edwards Award for “Strongest Commitment to New American Music in its 25th Year.” • ACO receives inaugural MetLife Award for Excellence in Community Engagement.

2002-03 • Steven Sloane becomes ACO’s second Music Director and founding conductor Dennis Russell Davies becomes ACO’s first Conductor Laureate.

2003-04 • ACO launches Orchestra Underground, a groundbreaking series designed to challenge the conventions of the symphony orchestra concert. • ACO creates Improvise!, a festival exploring improvisation and the orchestra. • ACO again receives American Symphony Orchestra League’s ASCAP award for “Strongest Commitment to New American Music.”

2004-05 • ACO wins an unprecedented second consecutive ASCAP Award for “Strongest Commitment to New American Music,” and ACO’s 28th ASCAP Award overall. • ACO launches $2.5 million dollar campaign to establish The Francis Thorne Fund for Young & Emerging composers.

2005-06 • ACO expands season to include performances at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, ACO’s first concerts outside of New York in 23 years. • ACO season includes an unprecedented ten world premieres and seven commissioned works. • Composer Derek Bermel appointed Music Alive Composer-in-Residence, providing new artistic guidance for ACO’s Orchestra Underground andComposers OutFront series.

2006-07 • ACO initiates first collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center in three sold-out performances. • ACO expands annual new music readings to include a new lab/reading in Philadelphia.

2007-08 • ACO, in cooperation with American Composers Forum, American Music Center, the League of American Orchestras, and Meet The Composer creates EarShot, a national orchestral composition discovery network. • ACO initiates Playing it UNsafe, the first-ever laboratory for the development of innovative new work for orchestra.

2008-09 • ACO’s recording initiative launches free streaming music on InstantEncore.com.

2009-10 • ACO announces partnership with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton to commission and premiere new works by emerging composers • Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute launches, providing experience to 30 jazz composers in writing for symphony orchestra.

2010-11 • George Manahan becomes ACO’s third Music Director • ACO offers first Internet digital download album available on iTunes, Amazon, and more • ACO extends Playing It UNsafe laboratory to create a season-long collaborative incubator for experimental new orchestra music.

2011-12 •   ACO produced a nine-day, New York City-wide festival of young composers titled SONiC: Sounds of a New Century, featuring works composed in the first decade of this century by 125 composers age 40 and under. •   ACO’s full-symphony orchestra celebrates Philip Glass’s 75th birthday by performing the U.S. Premiere of his Symphony No. 9 at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. •   The second and third digital albums titled Emerging Composers Vol 1 & Orchestra Underground: X10D are released.

2012-13 •  ACO completes major project to archive its definitive collection of American orchestra music recordings of the last 75 years, and transfers its collection to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.