July 23, 2025 Library Announces 2025 Music Commissions from Koussevitzky Foundation

The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress has awarded commissions for new musical works to eight composers. The commissions are granted jointly by the foundation and the performing organizations that will present the world premiere of each work.

Winning composers for 2025 and the groups co-sponsoring their commissions are: Lisa Bielawa and the Louisville Orchestra, Don Byron and the Sutter-McMillen Duo, Klaus Lang and Yarn/Wire, Angelique Poteat and the Northwest Sinfonietta, Ali Can Puskulcu and the Eclipse String Quartet, Max Vinetz and Exceptet, Eric Wubbels and JACK Quartet, and Bora Yoon and the Harlem Chamber Players.

The Library and the Koussevitzky Foundation are honored to have been chosen by the American Academy of Arts and Letters to offer three composer grants in 2025 made possible by the Otto and Catherine Brunson Luening Awards Fund. Composers selected for this distinction are Angelique Poteat, Max Vinetz and Eric Wubbels. The new commissions will be dedicated to renowned composer Otto Luening (1900-1996) and his wife, music teacher Catherine Brunson Luening (1922-2021). 

The Koussevitzky Foundation was once again able to grant a commission in memory of composer Andrew W. Imbrie (1921-2007), a longtime member of the board. This commission, inaugurated in 2021, is made possible through a generous gift from Barbara Cushing Imbrie and Andrew Philip Imbrie. Composer Ali Can Puskulcu, sponsored by the Eclipse String Quartet, is the 2025 recipient of the Imbrie commission.

Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949, was a leading champion of contemporary music. Throughout his distinguished career, he played a vital role in the creation of new works by commissioning composers such as Béla Bartók, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. He established the Koussevitzky Foundation in 1942 and passed operations to the Library of Congress in 1949 to continue his lifelong commitment to composers and new music. Original manuscripts of works commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation comprise an integral part of the Library’s unparalleled music collections.

Applications for commissions are accepted annually. The next deadline for submissions is Jan. 15, 2026. Please visit koussevitzky.org for more information.

2025 Koussevitzky Commission Recipients

Composer, vocalist and producer Lisa Bielawa is noted for her collaborative endeavors with performing artists as well as other participants who are central to many of her works. Bielawa is commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation and the Louisville Orchestra to write her second violin concerto. Her history with that organization resulted in several large-scale projects involving hundreds of professional musicians and members of the Louisville community to inaugurate the orchestra’s Creators Corp. Bielawa began touring as the vocalist with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992 and in 2019 she became the inaugural Composer-in-Residence and Chief Curator of the Philip Glass Institute at The New School. She is the recipient of the Music Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an OPERA America Grant for Female Composers.

Don Byron is noted for his versatility as a virtuoso clarinetist and saxophonist, participating in the revival of Klezmer music early in his career, then performing multiple forms of jazz, bop, Latin, pop, Western concert music and beyond. His approach to music composition is equally wide-ranging, with a catalog that touches on evolving musical styles inspired by avant-garde jazz, Western classical, hip-hop and funk, among other genres. Byron’s “There Goes the Neighborhood” was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in1994. He has written scores for silent film and for television. He served as the director of jazz for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  A Guggenheim Fellow, Grammy nominee, and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Byron will write a cello and piano work for the Sutter-McMillen Duo.

Austrian composer and concert organist Klaus Lang will write a new work scored for the Yarn/Wire ensemble of two pianists and two percussionists, with added solo for pipe organ. Lang’s works have been performed or commissioned by distinguished ensembles such as the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, the Arditti Quartet, Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Cologne Philharmonic, and the Bonn Opera, among many others, and his music has been featured at festivals across Europe and in Asia. Lang is the author of numerous journal and encyclopedia articles on various musical topics. He serves as faculty for the renowned Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt and he is professor of music composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria.

Angelique Poteat is a Pacific Northwest composer and clarinetist whose music has received performances on four continents by ensembles including the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, arx Percussion Duo, Emerald City Music, CernaBella, and Trio Claviola. Poteat served as Artist-in-Residence with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and was the Director of the Seattle Symphony Young Composers Workshop. She is the recipient of the American Prize celebrating excellence in the arts for her orchestral composition “Beyond Music Difference” and has been recognized by the International Society of Bassists David Walter Composition Competition for her work “Pacificus.”  The Northwest Sinfonietta, based in the Puget Sound region, co-commissions Poteat to write a chamber orchestra work celebrating nature conservation; the piece is set to draw inspiration from the Chuckanut geological formation in Washington State.

Active as a composer and violinist, Turkish-American Ali Can Puskulcu was awarded the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Foundation commission from Harvard University, and a residency at Copland House.  His works have been recorded on New Focus Recordings and performed internationally at New York’s MATA Festival, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight series at Walt Disney Hall, Gaudeamus Muzikweek in the Netherlands, and at France’s Saint-Martin-Vésubie. Puskulcu, who is a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University, will write a new work for the Eclipse String Quartet.

Max Vintez’s works draw inspiration from intersections between improvisatory, popular and traditional musical forms and aesthetics. He is interested in relationships between narrative, storytelling, musical objects and sonic artifacts as they relate to music and other forms of media. Among Vinetz’s awards and honors are a commission from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Jacob Druckman Prize from the Aspen Music Festival, and the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Foundation Leo Kaplan Award. His works have been performed by distinguished ensembles including JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, TAK ensemble, Bergamot Quartet, Contemporaneous, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Sō Percussion.

Eric Wubbels serves as pianist and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, a New York-based collective of composers and performers. A recipient of the 2023 Ernst von Siemens Foundation Composer Prize, fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Barlow Endowment, and commissions from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust. Wubbels has been a featured composer at numerous festivals and series including the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella concerts, the Huddersfield Festival, the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW programming, and Zurich Tage für Neue Musik. He will write a new work for JACK Quartet.

Bora Yoon is a Korean-American multi-instrumentalist, composer, vocalist and sound artist. Her new work will be written for the Harlem Chamber Players. Yoon creates audiovisual soundscapes using digital devices, voice, found objects and instruments from a variety of cultures to create storytelling through music, movement and sound.  Her work has been presented at venues worldwide, including those in Poland, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea and Sweden, along with American stages at the Walker Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. She has received honors and commissions from the Barlow Endowment, Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, OPERA America, Asian American Arts Alliance, and the Sorel Organization for Women Composers. 

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.