About ACA

Publisher - Distributor - Concert Presenter - Archivist

The American Composers Alliance was founded in 1937 by Aaron Copland and others, to protect the rights of music creators and to strengthen career opportunities for contemporary concert music composers.

Today, ACA is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing its composer members a unique variety of services including professional representation of all otherwise unpublished works, registration of works for performance tracking and royalty payments, print publication and promotion, and library archiving of materials, while bringing fresh and vibrant American music to performing artists and to the general public through its searchable online database and annual summer festival of concerts.

The ACA catalog, licensed for performance through BMI, contains orchestral and chamber works from the early 1900s to the present, and remains one of the most unique and diverse collections of American music in the entire world. Historically, the collection includes a considerable number of important works by African-American and women composers.

The original and continuing mission of ACA is to publish and distribute the music of its composer members and to support and promote performances of their works. ACA publishes and manages music by T.J. Anderson, Miriam Gideon, Robert Helps, Ulysses Kay, Otto Luening, Robert McBride, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Terry Winter Owens, Daniel Pinkham, Dane Rudhyar, Halsey Stevens, Elias Tannenbaum, Joan Tower, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Karl and Vally Weigl, Charles Wuorinen, and many others.

ACA composers’ works are being performed around the world, including most recently, by the Detroit Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the University of Utah Orchestra, the Alabama Symphony, The Cleveland Institute of Music, The Center for Contemporary Opera, The Winnipeg Orchestra, the iO String Quartet, the Avalon String Quartet, the Zukofsky Quartet, duo Parnas, Second Instrumental Unit, Ensemble Kolot, the New York Virtuoso Singers, renowned baritone Jan Opalach, clarinet virtuoso Esther Lamneck, violist Rudolf Haken, the New Juilliard Ensemble, and the Arizona West Honor Choir, among many other chamber groups and solo performers.

Thanks for visiting our website!

info [at] composers [dot] com

Permalink