Emergence is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to the creation and dissemination of new works of contemporary American Music. Created by composer Patrick Zimmerli as a conduit for his Emergence concert series from 2005-2008, the organization has supported the work of several living composers, though since 2012 it has focused principally as a conduit for Zimmerli's work.

Emergence’s goal is to create works that have a life in the world beyond their initial grant or performance. For instance Aspects of Darkness and Light, supported by a commission from the Seattle Chamber Music Society, was premiered at Wigmore Hall in London, and then went on to be recorded for Nonesuch and performed at Princeton, Skaneateles, and Boston’s Celebrity Series.

Zimmerli’s jazz suite Clockworks, a Doris Duke Foundation-Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant, was premiered at (le) Poisson Rouge, and was then recorded for Songlines and performed at the Ecstatic Music Festival in 2018.

Zimmerli’s song cycle on the poetry of Sappho, Sappho:Desire, written for Brazilian singer Luciana Souza, was premiered at Wigmore Hall in 2013, received its American Premiere at the Bryant Park INTERSECT festival in 2017, and will be recorded for Songlines recordings.

As Zimmerli has extended his base to include France, Emergence has initiated several Franco-American projects, including Lorca in New York (a multimedia meditation on the poet’s collection Poet in New York) with French director Mirabelle Ordinaire. The Oratorio Alan Seeger: Instrument of Destiny was premiered at the Invalides in Paris, with subsequent performances in Reims and at the Fondation Boghossian in Brussels, and plans for a series of US performances.

Emergence upcoming projects include the 2019 Seattle Commissioning Club commission, which Zimmerli received for a a Franco-American Jazz Collaboration with French pianist Thomas Enhco, the Quatuor Morphing, and American jazz bassist Ruben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland. The piece will premiere in France in 2019 and travel to the USA thereafter.

Also upcoming is a Flute Concerto for German-based Korean Flutist Jasmine Choi, a consortium commission initiated by the New York Classical Players and projected to involve orchestras from Asia, Europe, and North America, to be premiered in the 2019-20 season. 

Further down the road, Emergence plans to create Zimmerli’s opera Lucia Joyce, on the life of James Joyce’s daughter. As Lucia’s fate played out largely in Paris, this will again be a Franco-American project with a mixed cast, with the premiere to be held at National Sawdust, Brooklyn Venue for New Music with which Zimmerli has a relationship as curator. 

Get in touch:

pz@patrickzimmerli.com