San Francisco Contemporay Music Players

About Us

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is the West Coast's most longstanding and largest new music ensemble, comprised of 22 highly skilled musicians. For more than 50 years, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players have created innovative and artistically excellent music and are one of the most active ensembles in the United States dedicated to contemporary music. Holding an important role in the regional and national cultural landscape, the Contemporary Music Players are a 2018 awardee of the esteemed Fromm Foundation Ensemble Prize, and a ten-time winner of the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.

The Players have performed more than 1,300 works by over 600 composers and the organization has commissioned over 80 major works including pieces from composers such as John Adams, John Cage, Earle Brown, Olly Wilson, Michael Gordon, Du Yun, Myra Melford, and Julia Wolfe. The Contemporary Players have been presented by leading cultural festivals and concert series including San Francisco Performances, Los Angeles Monday Evening Concerts, Cal Performances, the Stern Grove Festival, the Festival of New American Music at CSU Sacramento, the Ojai Festival, and France’s prestigious MANCA Festival.

The Contemporary Music Players nourish the creation and dissemination of new works through world-class performances, commissions, and community and education programs. The Players perform the music of composers from across cultures and stylistic traditions who are creating a vast and vital 21st-century musical language featuring the work of iconic and emerging composers while shining a spotlight on works for large ensemble and California artists.

“There’s a reason why SFCMP is considered the Bay Area’s premier new music ensemble.”
— Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

Our Mission

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players produce and perform virtuosic, large-ensemble concerts of contemporary music featuring the works of iconic and emerging composers while shining a spotlight on California artists. The Contemporary Music Players expand and enhance the contemporary music repertoire by collaborating with composers on the interpretation, commissioning, and recording of new works and provide education programs to encourage the development of the next generation of contemporary music composers and musicians.

SFCMP evolved from concerts begun in 1971 by Charles Boone and was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1974 by Marcella DeCray and Jean-Louis LeRoux. The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is a unionized ensemble based out of San Francisco, California.