Campaign Gift Ensures Future of Composer Fellowship Program

In 2016 Nancy and Barry Sanders pledged a significant Campaign commitment to secure the future of and name the Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program (CFP). A unique offering among American orchestras, CFP is an innovative immersion program for high-school-age composers that provides unrivaled access to the world’s leading composers and musicians, and gives them the tools necessary to pursue a career in music. Ms. Sanders is the tireless Chair of the LA Phil Board’s Education & Community Engagement Committee and Mr. Sanders served as Board Chair during some of the most significant years in the orchestra’s history. Nancy and Barry’s gift is a tremendous vote of confidence in the program, its students, alumni and its current director, composer Andrew Norman.

LA Phil Associate Principal Clarinet Burt Hara has worked closely with the Fellows since joining the orchestra in 2013. “When I agreed to do this, I had no idea that it was working with such young composers. I assumed they were between 20 and 30,” Hara said. “I was struck with how individualized they are — they’re not all copying the style of their teacher. I was quite impressed with the maturity of the writing.”

“We wanted kids who were capable of pushing themselves and pushing the art form,” CFP Director and Composer Andrew Norman says. “The LA Phil is not just interested in preserving classical music’s past, but in taking it forward.”

We thank Nancy and Barry Sanders for their gift of endowment, which will help the artistic voices of Southern California’s most talented young composers flourish for generations to come.