After months of uncertainty, the Emerging Black Composers Project (EBCP), launched in 2020 by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Symphony, is back on track.
The Emerging Black Composers Project Returns in San Francisco
Composer Jens Ibsen was the 2022 winner of a $15,000 commission from the Emerging Black Composers Project, a five-year-old program put on pause earlier this year after the Trump administration’s attacks on DEI. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
In early March 2025, SFCM and the SF Symphony announced the program was paused, citing a memo from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that instructed schools to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts or face the possibility of losing their federal funding.
Side-stepping that memo, the SF Symphony — not an educational institution — is now the sole administrator of the project, with the SFCM in a supporting role.
Created in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the EBCP was established as a 10-year commissioning project meant to lower some of the barriers Black composers face in the field of classical music. The program awards $15,000 to early-career Black composers, gives them a premiere with the SF Symphony, and provides them with mentorship from music directors at local partner organizations.
“I am thrilled that the Emerging Black Composers Project will continue finding and funding some of the best musical talent in the country,” Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, chair of the EBCP said in a statement released by the SF Symphony on Friday. “It’s been very gratifying to see our past laureates continue to create and enjoy success, which speaks to the importance of not only our program, but all that celebrate and support early-stage artists.”
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The winner of the fifth annual EBCP Michael Morgan Prize will be announced in the fall, and a call for the 2026 award will go out in November. (The prize was renamed in 2023 to honor the late Oakland Symphony conductor and co-founder of the EBCP, who died in 2021.)
So far, the program has commissioned 11 pieces. Past prize winners include Jens Ibsen, Xavier Muzik, Tyler Taylor and Trevor Weston, with additional monetary awards going to composers Jonathan Bingham, Shawn Okpebholo and Sumi Tonooka.
Tyler Taylor, the winner of the 2024 Michael Morgan Prize, will have a premiere of his new work in May 2026, performed by the SF Symphony and conductor Cristian Măcelaru.
