Music at the Anthology’s (MATA) mission is to present, support, and commission the music of early career composers, regardless of their stylistic views or aesthetic inclinations. Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996 as a way to address the lack of presentation opportunities for unaffiliated composers, MATA has since developed into the world’s most sought-after performance opportunity for young and emerging composers.
MATA presents an internationally-recognized festival each spring in New York City of new music by early career composers selected from a free global call for submissions; MATA Presents, an acclaimed series of occasional concerts held at venues throughout New York; and MATA Jr., an evening of music by pre-college composers, mentored by emerging composers, and performed by an ensemble of their peers.
In addition to these regular offerings, over the years MATA has presented numerous other events and activities open to the general public, included among them: public sound art installations, (2003, 2008-10, 2015); lectures and panel discussions (2002-04, 2007-09); workshops related to the business of composing (2011-present); a “Composer’s School” (2014-15); public art events (Composer’s Petting Zoo, 2005; Super Critical Mass’s Swelter, 2011; David Bird’s Fields, 2014); Interactive apps (MATA Walk With Me, 2015); composer reading sessions (2002-04, 2013-14); and showcases (MATA at the Atlantic, 2015).
MATA’s festivals and events are critically acclaimed and broadly respected: The New Yorker has hailed MATA as “the most exciting showcase for outstanding young composers from around the world.” The New York Times has called it “nondogmatic, even antidogmatic;” The Wall Street Journal said that it “tells us a lot about how composers are thinking now.” Composers that have been presented by MATA early in their careers include future Rome, Alpert, Takemitsu, Siemens, and Pulitzer Prize-winners, Guggenheim Fellows, and MacArthur “Geniuses.” In 2010 MATA was awarded ASCAP’s prestigious Aaron Copland award in recognition of its work.
