History and Programs

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, an ensemble of highly skilled musicians, performs innovative new music of exceptional interest. It attracts and engages audiences through concert events in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, and nourishes the creation and dissemination of new work through commissioning, recording, and outreach. Now in its fortieth year, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is a national leader among advocates for contemporary chamber music.

The eighteen members of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players are all active as soloists and chamber musicians. Many are members of the San Francisco Symphony, Ballet or Opera Orchestras; others perform and record with their own chamber ensembles.

A subscription concert series at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre forms the heart of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players' activities. With average attendance of 275 per concert (5 year average), the series is one of the best attended of its kind in the United States. Highlights have been broadcast in more than fifty countries by the radio program Art of the States. Each concert is preceded by an informative discussion with the evening's composers and guest artists.

A ten-time winner of the national ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players has won this award more times than any other ensemble. The ensemble has performed more than 1,171 contemporary works, including 74 U.S. premieres and 145 world premieres, and has commissioned 74 new pieces from such composers as John Adams, Mario Davidovsky, Philippe Leroux, Liza Lim, and Julia Wolfe. Known for programming that is international in scope and stylistically diverse, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players focuses its repertoire on music written in the last ten years, with a special emphasis on California composers.

The ensemble has toured widely throughout California with performances on such prestigious concert series as San Francisco Performances, Cal Performances, the Morrison Artists Series, the Stern Grove Festival, Los Angeles' Monday Evening Concerts, the Ojai Festival, and the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento. The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players made its European debut at the Cheltenham Festival in 1986 and its East Coast debut at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in 2001. In 2009 the ensemble performed in the 30th anniversary season of the prestigious MANCA new music festival in Nice, France.

In addition to maintaining its active performance schedule, the ensemble has released twenty recordings, including, most recently, music of Edmund Campion and a CD of pieces by Pablo Ortiz recorded in collaboration with the men's chorus, Chanticleer.

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players maintains residencies in two public high schools - School of the Arts and Lowell High - performing twice per year in each school. The ensemble's Contemporary Insights: Music and Conversation series offers audience members a chance to preview selected performances and to meet and engage with the musicians.