TMC Festival of Contemporary Music

TMC Festival of Contemporary Music

Steven MACKEY Sneaky March
Lembit BEECHER Three Immigrant Songs
Vijay IYER The Law of Returns
Niloufar NOURBAKHSH Aid for Sex
Tania LEÓN In the Field

Award-winning Iranian-American composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh wrote that her difficult, affecting piece Aid for Sex was inspired by a 2018 U.N. report that explored how aid workers will help Syrian refugees with one hand and exploit them with the other. The piece, Nourbakhsh wrote, features a chaotic soundscape — emblematic of the environment in which refugees live — that develops into something more harmonious by the end.

The TMC Festival of Contemporary Music seeks to showcase up-and-coming, path-finding, and groundbreaking new composers whose works we believe will define the next evolution of classical music.

The Festival of Contemporary Music has been endowed in perpetuity by the generosity of Dr. Raymond H. and Mrs. Hannah H. Schneider, with additional support from the Fromm Music Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Amphion Foundation, Inc., and the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University.