Association for Contemporary Music (ACM) (, ''ASM - Assotsiatsiya Sovremennoy Muzyki'') was an alternative organization of
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and def ...
s interested in
avant-garde
In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
music. It was founded by
Nikolai Roslavets in 1923. ACM ran concert series and published magazines promoting the modernist music of
Mahler,
Schoenberg,
Berg,
Webern,
Krenek, and
Hindemith, as well as the work of its members. Its leading members were
Dmitri Shostakovich,
Nikolai Myaskovsky,
Vissarion Shebalin,
Alexander Mosolov,
Gavriil Popov, and
Vladimir Shcherbachev. The organization's enthusiasm for avant-garde Western music and for experimentation met with opposition from the
Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians The Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians or RAPM () was a musicians' creative union of the early Soviet period. It was founded in June 1923, by Lev Shul'gin, Aleksei Sergeev, and David Chernomoridikov. RAPM's members advocated "mass songs" ...
(RAPM), which by the late 1920s had eclipsed the ACM in terms of cultural influence. ACM was formally disbanded in 1931,
whereas RAPM existed until 23 April 1932, when it was abolished by the Decree on the Reformation of Literary and Artistic Organizations.
[''Music for the Revolution'', p.242]
Russia's New ACM (or ACM-2), the revival of the previous organization, was established in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
in 1990. Its chairman was composer
Edison Denisov. The co-founders of the new ACM were
Elena Firsova,
Dmitri Smirnov, and
Nikolai Korndorf. Its members included
Leonid Hrabovsky,
Alexander Knaifel,
Sergei Pavlenko,
Alexander Voustin,
Vladislav Shoot,
Viktor Yekimovsky,
Faraj Karayev,
Vyacheslav Artyomov,
Vladimir Tarnopolsky,
Alexander Raskatov,
Ivan Sokolov, and
Yuri Kasparov. Eminent composers like
Sofia Gubaidulina,
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer. Among the most performed and recorded composers of late 20th-century classical music, he is described by musicologist Ivan Moody (composer), Ivan Moody as a ...
,
Valentin Silvestrov, and
Tigran Mansuryan were invited to join the ACM. ACM became affiliated with the
International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM).
After the collapse of the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
in 1991, many members of the ACM emigrated to the West, and Denisov died in 1996. The ACM was split into two parts. One, based in the
Union of Composers and led by
Victor Yekimovsky, adopted the title "Russian National Section, the International Society for Contemporary Music" (RNS-ISCM); it supported the "Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble". The other, based in the
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory () is a higher musical educational institution located in Moscow, Russia. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in musical performance and musical research. Th ...
and led by
Vladimir Tarnopolsky, took the name "Centre for Contemporary Music, Moscow" (CCMM). CCMM was the ISCM Associate Member, and supported the "Studio of New Music".
References
* Nelson, Amy (2004). ''Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia''. Pennsylvania State University Press.
* Faiclough, Pauline (2006). ''A Soviet Credo: Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony''. Ashgate.
Notes
External links
Association News of Contemporary Music Union-SPBCCMM page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Association For Contemporary Music
Modernism (music)
Music organizations based in Russia