THE PATRONAGE PROJECT

Write a letter to a composer explaining in detail that you, as a patron of the arts, wish to commission him or her to write a multi-movement piece of music for you according to your specifications. You should write a request for a minimum of three movements. Your letter should be in three parts: Part 1. Introduce yourself as someone living in the style period of the composer you choose. Are you a king or queen, prince or princess, count or countess, baron or baroness? (For this project, you may be living in the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, or in our current time.) Are you a bishop, archbishop in the church? Or are you a successful, well-off captain of industry who is or wishes to be a patron of the arts? Are you an entrepreneur with newfound wealth and good intentions to spread it? Perhaps you inherited all of your wealth; if so, from where? Describe yourself and your background that provides you with the wealth necessary to commission a piece of music from a composer. Part 2. Write about the composer you have chosen. Explain to him or her what you know about them, what you know about music they have written before, what you like about their music, and why you are choosing them over all of the other composers. Part 3. Tell the composer what exactly you want from them in the multi-movement piece of music they write for you. Consider what style period the composer you’ve chosen worked or works in. In your commission proposal, be specific about the matters listed here. Your details should be consistent with the style period in which your composer lived or lives. The piece you commission should be based on your knowledge and repeated listenings of previous work of the composer. Your commission should consist of a minimum of three movements (or songs if a song cycle). If an opera, you should state the number of acts, and the number and affect of arias, recitatives, and choruses in each act. the list of composers you may choose from to commission a work as part of the Music Patronage Project: Adams, John Adolphe, Julia Andriessen, Louis Bach, Johann Sebastien Barilari, Elbio Rodríguez Bartok, Bela Beethoven, Ludwig van Berlioz, Hector Bjarnason, Daníel Bolcom, William Borodin, Alexander Botti, Susan Bowers, Kris Britell, Nicholas Britten, Benjamin Cage, John Chen, Chelsea Chin, Unsuk Chopin, Frederic Copland, Aaron Corigliano, John Daugherty, Michael Debussy, Claude des Prez, Josquin D'Netto, Connor Escalzo, Noelia Figuroa Mañas, Adriana Isabel Frank, Gabriela Lena Gershwin, George Glazunov, Alexander Gubaudulina, Sofia Guðnadóttir, Hildur Hakim, Naji Handel, George Frideric Haydn, Franz Joseph Henneman, Ig Higdon, Jennifer Holter, Julia Hsu, Chaiyu Joachim , Nathalie Larsen, Libby León, Tania Lindberg, Marcus Liszt, Franz Mackey, John Madsen, Pamela Markowski, Michael Mazzoli, Missy Montgomery, Jessie Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Muhly, Nico Musgrave, Thea Norman, Andrew Nante, Alex Negrón, Angélica Nishimura, Yukiko Ogonek, Elizabeth Ojakangas, Celka Ilona Orem, Philip Ortiz, Gabriela Pärt, Arvo Puccini, Giacomoz Ravel, Maurice Riley, Terry Rimsky-Korsakov Revueltas, Silvestre Rodriguez, Ivette Herrymans Salieri, Antonio Salonen, Esa-Pekka Sarcina, Antonia Sasaki, Miho Shekhar, Nina Shuying Li Sibelius, Jean Ssu-Uy Huang Stravinsky, Igor Stucky, Steven Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich Thorvaldsdottir, Anna Ticheli, Frank Tower, Joan Valverde, Mari Esabel Vaqueiras, Raimbaut de Vivaldi, Antonio Wagner, Richard Walicki, Kenneth Whitacre, Eric Woolf, Luna Pearl Xi, Wang Yen, Ming-Hsiu Yi, Chen Z, Pamela Zhao Lin Zwilich, Ellen Taaffe