Thea Musgrave Makes Landmark $250,000 Gift To Launch a New Performance Fund

Today, Chamber Music America, the national network of ensemble music professionals, announced the largest single gift by an individual to the organization, which will be used to create the Thea Musgrave Performance Fund. This endowment, initiated by the prolific composer herself, will provide support to professional, US-based ensembles dedicated to performing her more than 60 chamber music works. Encouraging performances that celebrate Musgrave’s distinguished artistry, the fund aims to deepen appreciation of her music and bring her works to new audiences in chamber music settings.

Up to 10 awards, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, will be distributed to ensembles that perform at least one work by Musgrave on their concert program. Each awarded project must also include an audience engagement component (e.g. pre- or post-performance talkback, panel, or education session) highlighting Musgrave’s biography, artistic influences, cultural and historical contexts of her work, and/or her continuing impact on contemporary composition. Awarded funds can be used to cover rehearsal and performance costs, audience engagement activities, and an optional recording or streaming component.

“Chamber Music America is honored to receive this generous endowment from Thea Musgrave, a defining figure of contemporary classical music, whose work is ripe for rediscovery and fresh appreciation by a new generation of musicians and audiences,” says Kevin Kwan Loucks, CEO of CMA. “We look forward to serving as careful and dedicated stewards of her chamber music catalog so that its beauty and innovation may continue to resonate.”

Born in Edinburgh in 1928, Musgrave is widely considered one of the most significant composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, with an enormous body of work renowned for its range as well as its dramatic, inventive, atmospheric, and adventurous flair. She studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris for four years in the 1950s, before beginning her composing career back in London. Musgrave moved to the United States in 1971 following her marriage to American violist and conductor Peter Mark, where she completed the third of her 12 operas, including her watershed opera, Mary Queen of Scots. She has been commissioned by some of the world’s finest orchestras, and while her staged works and orchestral pieces—including her Clarinet Concerto, Concerto for Orchestra, and Turbulent Landscapes—receive the most acclaim, her chamber music works are no less vibrant. Her work includes electronic media as well as pieces for chorus and wind and brass ensembles. In her “dramatic-abstract” and “dramatic programmatic” styles, theatrical instructions are often incorporated into the score. Today, at age 97, Musgrave continues to compose, and the careful safeguarding of her earlier works is a key priority and essential to her future legacy.

“I am grateful for what I know will be the thoughtful stewardship of my chamber music works and for the opportunity to entrust this responsibility to Chamber Music America,” says Musgrave. “CMA’s longstanding success in the custodianship of major funds and the administration of their respective grant programs gives me confidence in the organization’s ability to honor my music and musical intentions with care and integrity. This partnership allows me to continue creating new work while ensuring a lasting legacy for the works I have produced over the years.”

Applications for the inaugural Thea Musgrave Performance Fund will be accepted beginning this February. An independent panel of chamber music professionals will review each application with award announcements expected in July 2026. Recipients will have the opportunity to perform during CMA’s National Conference in Chicago, August 20-23, 2026.

About Thea Musgrave

Rich and powerful musical language and a strong sense of drama have made Scottish-American composer Thea Musgrave one of the most respected and exciting contemporary composers in the Western world. Her works have been widely performed in Britain, Europe and the USA, and at the major music festivals, such as Edinburgh, Warsaw Autumn, Florence Maggio Musicale, Venice Biennale, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham and Zagreb. Her works have also been heard on most European and American broadcasting stations; and on many regular symphony concert series.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 27 May 1928, Thea studied at the University of Edinburgh. Later she spent four years with Nadia Boulanger, studying privately with her every week, as well as at the Conservatoire in Paris before establishing herself back in London as a prominent member of British musical life. In 1970 she became Guest Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1971 she married the American opera conductor Peter Mark, and since 1972 has resided in the U.S. She received a Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation-Library of Congress commission for Space Play (1974), which after its London premiere in the Queen Elizabeth Hall was performed in New York by the Lincoln Center Chamber Players. She has also been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships as well as honorary degrees from Old Dominion University (Virginia), Smith College, Glasgow University, and New England Conservatory of Music. She served as Distinguished Professor at Queens College, City University of New York from September 1987-2002 and was awarded a C.B.E. on the Queen’s New Year’s Honour List in January 2002. In 2018 she was presented with both the Ivor Classical Music Award and The Queen’s Medal for Music, which she received in an audience with Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace.

About Chamber Music America

Chamber Music America, the national network of ensemble music professionals, was founded in 1977 to develop, strengthen, and support the chamber music community. With a membership including musicians, ensembles, presenters, artists’ managers, educators, music businesses, and advocates of ensemble music, CMA welcomes members representing a wide range of musical styles and traditions. In addition to its funding programs which awards more than $1.2 million annually, CMA provides its members with consulting services, access to instrument and other insurances, conferences, seminars, and its quarterly publication, Chamber Music magazine.