Now is the right time to become an American Federation of Musicians member. From ragtime to rap, from the early phonograph to today's digital recordings, the AFM has been there for its members. And now there are more benefits available to AFM members than ever before, including a multi-million dollar pension fund, excellent contract protection, instrument and travelers insurance, work referral programs and access to licensed booking agents to keep you working.
As an AFM member, you are part of a membership of more than 80,000 musicians. Experience has proven that collective activity on behalf of individuals with similar interests is the most effective way to achieve a goal. The AFM can negotiate agreements and administer contracts, procure valuable benefits and achieve legislative goals. A single musician has no such power.
The AFM has a proud history of managing change rather than being victimized by it. We find strength in adversity, and when the going gets tough, we get creative - all on your behalf.
Like the industry, the AFM is also changing and evolving, and its policies and programs will move in new directions dictated by its members. As a member, you will determine these directions through your interest and involvement. Your membership card will be your key to participation in governing your union, keeping it responsive to your needs and enabling it to serve you better. To become a member now, visit www.afm.org/join.
Canyon Shadows is inspired in large part by the Grand Canyon of the American Southwest.
Hard Place (Between a Rock…) is a challenging conversation between two flutes. Featuring extended techniques (tongue pizzicato, beatboxing, vocal shushing, and optional whistling), this duet’s dissonant and sonorous nature offers drama, excitement, and color.
February 3, 2020
The Variations on Jean-Pierre Duport’s Minuet, K. 573 (originally for solo piano) are a product of Mozart’s final years. Exuding the childlike wonder and capacity for joy that Mozart sustained throughout his life, these sunny and playful variations could almost pass for music from his youth. Only one variation reveals that they were written in […]
February 3, 2020
This book comprises Keith Jarrett’s solo piano renderings of jazz ballads and folk songs, in which he strips them to their melodic essence and, gently, lays bare their emotional core. This transcription, which has Jarrett’s personal approval, was worked out at the keyboard and aims, above all, for maximum playability within the greatest tonal range. […]
February 3, 2020
Virtuoso flutist Robert Stallman won accolades throughout his 50-year career of performing and transcribing. A lifelong lover of opera, when his wife suggested he create his own opera fantasy, he quickly took up Gioachino Rossini’s Semiramide as the score to explore, noting that it included so much flute and piccolo material. The Semiramide premiered in […]
February 3, 2020
The “Flute Concerto,” by Peter Senchuk, of Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA), is in a standard three-movement form, with the first and third movements acting as fast, virtuosic bookends to the much gentler and more lyrical second movement. The work was commissioned as a gift for musician Pam Youngblood, of Texas Women’s University, and, according […]
February 3, 2020
Radiating all the heat of passionate Spanish dance music, Lauren Bernofsky’s “Fandango” uses the solo cello both for the strumming and rhythmic effects of Flamenco, and also for the sensual lyricism of this ripe folk idiom. “Fandango” features a rich hybrid language, blending dark chord progressions in G Minor, Phrygian color, and an expansive and […]
February 3, 2020
In this handbook supplemented with figures, diagrams, and music examples, historical performers will discover why temperaments are necessary and how they work, descriptions of a variety of temperaments, and their application on fretted instruments. This technical book provides downloadable audio tracks and other tools for fretted instrument players to achieve more stable consonances, colorful dissonances, […]
February 3, 2020
Pianist Victor Babin arranged and composed for various settings. His “Divertissement Aspenois,” a virtuosic tribute to clarinetist Reginald Kell, may have been inspired by hearing Kell play Stravinsky’s “Three Pieces at Aspen,”where they both performed. Babin, former director of the Aspen Music Festival and dean of the Cleveland Institute of Music, wrote this unaccompanied piece […]
February 3, 2020
Legends of the phoenix are found in stories from ancient Egypt and Greece: a sacred bird with brilliantly colored plumage and melodious call lives for typically 500 years, then dies in a nest of embers, only to be reborn among the flames. “Phoenix Rising” consists of two movements: I. Dying in Embers represents an old […]