Key takeaways
- Nine faculty and student music projects have been awarded grants through the Hugo and Christine Davise Fund for Contemporary Music, administered through the UCLA Music Library.
- Projects were selected for their potential to advance the field of contemporary music.
- They include commissions and performances of new compositions, the launch of a UCLA alumni podcasting service, participatory events and more.
UCLA Library, which provides access to one of the largest academic music collections in North America, has announced the 2025 Hugo and Christine Davise Fund for Contemporary Music grantees. Nine faculty and student music projects will receive awards between $1,000 and $5,000.
Projects were selected for their potential to advance the field of contemporary music and include a world premiere of three dance movements inspired by Bach, participatory events reimagining the composer-performer-audience relationship, commissioned bodies of work exploring the importance of breath, podcasting services for UCLA music alumni and underrepresented musicians, a concert showcasing the work of musicians with disabilities and the impact on their work, and more.
Ephemera, recordings and other materials produced through these music projects will join the more than 400,000 physical items held by the Music Library, from resources for music research, performance, and study spanning all genres of music from ancient times to today. Any new works or commissions may be published in the Walter H. Rubsamen Music Library’s Contemporary Music Score Collection, the first open-access repository of new music published by a library and the largest of its kind in the world.
Full list of projects:
Three companion commissions to J.S. Bach’s “Gigue from E Major Partita BWV 1006”
UCLA faculty Movses Pogossian aims to champion new music through companion commissions inspired by the “Gigue in E Major” from Bach’s “Partita No. 3” and György Kurtág’s “Carenza Jig.” This project will include a violin recital and a world premiere of three short dance movements created by renowned composer Gabriela Lena Frank, Los Angeles-based composer Andrew McIntosh and cellist, composer and orchestrator Niall Tarō Ferguson, a UCLA alumnus.
Pussy Listening: Building an Activist Listening Practice
Each community — from classrooms and orchestras to families and friend groups — has listening conventions that often come from a place of submission and toward the agenda of those in power. In contrast, UCLA faculty Nina Eidsheim is focused on “pussy listening,” a term coined by Eidsheim as a life-making and meaning-making action that reaches beyond limited listening structures. Eidsheim’s participatory project is dedicated to recognizing and practicing this form of listening, while developing a new music theory.
Just Breathe
Curated and performed by UCLA lecturer and flutist Catherine Gregory, this ongoing program explores the essential nature of breath within music and life. Adding to this collection of newly commissioned works for the world’s three oldest instruments — flute, percussion and voice — the grant will support the commission of flutist/composer Allison Loggins-Hull.
Gregory performs “Just Breathe” with collaborators Ian Rosenbaum, a Grammy-nominated percussionist, and Ariadne Greif, a soprano and UCLA alumnus.
Trouble the Water: Honoring the HBCU Tradition Through the Music of Undine Smith Moore
Led by UCLA graduate student Jordan Hugh Sam, this project will support an intercollegiate collaboration between UCLA choral ensembles and Virginia State University concert choir students who are in residence at UCLA during a weeklong program celebrating the legacy of Undine Smith Moore (1904-1989). Moore was known as the “Dean of Black Women Composers” and was a former professor at VSU, one of the first public HBCUs.
The residency will involve interactive workshops focused on concerted spiritual and gospel performance practice and rehearsals with the UCLA choral ensembles. It culminates in a performance of three recently prepared manuscripts of Moore’s choral works.
Jump-starting Podcast Showcasing UCLA Alumni Composers
This project aims to jump-start a podcasting service to showcase the activities, achievements and experiences of UCLA composers. Led by UCLA graduate student Alec Norkey, the project will initially focus on alumni who have graduated within the last 10 years and are from historically underrepresented or marginalized communities, integrate non-western musical idioms in their musical practice and/or engage musically/artistically with historically underrepresented communities of Los Angeles.
A Festival of Light
Led by UCLA alumna Joung-A Monica Yum, this project supports composer and UCLA graduate student Yoni Fogelman’s contemporary oratorio, a reimagining of the story of Hanukkah through a fusion of ancient Jewish texts, original poetry and groundbreaking musical language.
Fogelman will collaborate with the Adoro Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based collective dedicated to presenting diverse musical traditions with contemporary innovation. Yum and Fogelman intend to premiere this exploration of faith, resistance and cultural identity in churches and synagogues across Los Angeles during the 2025 holiday season.
Theorizing Trauma and Disability in the Arts: A Concert of Contemporary Music
As part of the Fall 2025 conference “Theorizing Trauma and Disability in the Arts,” this concert, organized by UCLA faculty Jenny Olivia Johnson, will showcase composers, performers and sound artists who are disabled and/or for whom traumatic experiences have had a profound impact on their work. The concert will be headlined by Maria Chavez, the renowned Latine turntable artist whose recent experiences with major brain surgery and medical trauma are intrinsically linked to her craft.
Project Nimbus
Led by UCLA graduate student Emma Breen, this project commissions film and television composer Matias Ambrogi-Torres to highlight the versatility and power of the brass quintet, paying tribute to the role of brass instruments in the world of cinema. The new work will premiere at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles in May as part of a larger chamber program dedicated to the music of John Williams, which brings the magic of the movies to the families and patients at CHLA.
uclaFLUX Concert: Pierre Boulez’s "Improvisations sur Mallarmé II"
Organized by UCLA faculty Gloria Cheng, the grant will fund the music rentals enabling the upcoming performance of Pierre Boulez’s "Improvisations sur Mallarmé II" (May 27, 2025) as part of the coursework for uclaFLUX, a student ensemble devoted to the performance and production of chamber music concerts with repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries.
The Davise Fund Awards selection committee included Ciara Brewer, music access services assistant, Jamie Hazlitt, director of Arts, Music and Powell libraries, and Matthew Vest, music inquiry and research librarian.
Other funding opportunities through the Hugo and Christine Davise Fund for Contemporary Music include Resonate: An Open Access Call for Scores Series, which will be open for submissions in spring 2026.
For more information about the Walter H. Rubsamen Music Library, click here.
