Mission Commission

The numbers are impressive: six composers, 30 orchestras, dozens and dozens of performances. But stats alone don’t capture the impact of the latest iteration of the League of American Orchestras’ Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program. Created to address the longstanding underrepresentation of women composers at orchestras, the program not only commissions music some of the most exciting women composers working today, it also ensures that these new works will be infused in orchestra seasons for the next few years, with multiple performances throughout the U.S. and in Canada. And the program creates a consortium of orchestras, all collaborating to bring contemporary sounds to audiences nationwide. Composers Anna Clyne, Sarah Gibson, Angel Lam, Wang Lu, Gity Razaz, and Arlene Sierra have each been commissioned to write a new work; each work will be given its world premiere by a lead orchestra; the work will then be performed by four additional orchestras—making for a total of 30 composer/orchestra pairings that started this year and will run through 2024-25. In all, there will be far more than 30 performances of the new scores, with many of the participating orchestras performing the pieces on multiple programs.