BRAVE NEW WORKS OBTAINS NOT-FOR-PROFIT STATUS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Ann Arbor, MI - November 3, 2003

Brave New Works, an ensemble of 10 musicians that has been performing contemporary music since 1997, announces its recognition by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization. The not-for-profit status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code now permits Brave New Works to accept tax deductible grants, gifts, endowments, and other donations to support its mission to engage, enrich, and educate through the medium of contemporary music.

"This comes at such an opportune time, since Brave New Works has been gaining much notice in the past year," says President Katri Ervamaa. "Achieving non-profit status means we will finally be able to tap into a wide variety of funding sources to support current and future projects." Brave New Works appeared as the Ensemble-in-Residence at the Bowling Green New Music Festival in October 2003, and returns to Tufts University in Boston in May 2004 for its second annual "Bounding Board" project, which helps support the commissioning of new works. Artistic Director Chris Kim explains, "We have long wanted to commission some of the world's leading composers to write new works for our ensemble and to expand the contemporary classical music repertoire as a whole. I am very excited about the prospect of seeing these dreams realized thanks to the financial support we are now able to receive with non-profit status."

Chris Kim, along with Chris Froh and Eli Shapiro, founded Brave New Works at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Its musicians have performed in many countries, including [list a few exotic ones] and have collaborated with influential composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition, Brave New Works has commissioned and premiered numerous works for its unique instrumentation of string quartet, piano, flute, harp, clarinet, and soprano. Brave New Works serves its educational mission through several college and university residences across the United States, offering workshops and performing the new music of faculty and advanced students, some written specifically for Brave New Works.

Famed composer Leslie Bassett, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for music, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, says of Brave New Works: "New efforts growing from a culture can bring heightened meaning, unexpected insights, new beauty. Such works must be heard, beautifully performed, become known, loved and cherished. Brave New Works is an ensemble committed to such a goal."