Today, we proudly announce our 2026-2027 season, the continuation of a multi-year celebration of our tenth anniversary, Luna Lab@10. Spanning the 2025-26, and 2026-27 seasons, Luna Lab@10 features more than 90 world premieres by over 50 Luna Lab alumni. The 2026–27 season continues this landmark initiative with more than 50 of these premieres, co-commissioned, presented, and performed by leading ensembles and institutions including Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, Louisville Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Connect, The Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Cal Performances, Norway’s Arctic Chamber Music Festival, Berlin Academy of American Music, New Music Concerts Toronto, and many more.
Founded in 2016 by composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, Luna Composition Lab began as a bold and necessary intervention: a commitment to support young composers who are female, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming from the very beginning of their artistic lives – not as exceptions, but as the future of the field. Growing up in small towns in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, Mazzoli and Reid did not encounter a single professional female composer until their twenties – an absence that shaped Luna Lab’s founding vision. A decade later, that vision has grown into an internationally recognized organization with a proven model for equity, artistic excellence, and long-term impact.
Highlights of our 2026-2027 season include a February 2027 evening-length program presented by Cal Performances in Berkeley that will include works by Mazzoli and Reid, mentor composers, and world premiere commissions by three Luna Lab alumni; as well as our Luna Lab Festival held in New York City in June 2027, featuring performances by the International Contemporary Ensemble of five commissioned works by Luna Lab composers at National Sawdust and of premieres by the 2027 Luna Lab Fellows performed by Ensemble Connect at Carnegie Hall.
We were recently featured in The New York Times to celebrate this milestone anniversary and its commitment to change and support within the industry.
“It’s definitely a challenging moment for a lot of people in the arts, but we are who we are and we feel emboldened in this moment.”—Ellen Reid
“We love the field. We want the field to continue. We want it to thrive. We want it to expand. And so bringing in gender diversity, racial diversity, economic income diversity, geographic diversity helps everyone. It helps this field survive and thrive and continue to remain as relevant as we feel it to be when we’re making art.”—Missy Mazzoli
Luna Composition Lab’s mission is to close the gender gap in music composition through mentorship, performance opportunities, and sustained professional community. By empowering young composers ages 13 to 18 during a formative stage in their artistic development while dismantling structural barriers to participation, Luna Lab provides a model of inclusivity that reshapes individual artistic lives and expands the future of the field itself.
What began in 2016 as a small program at New York City’s Kaufman Music Center – a cohort of three New York-based students supported by a single $10,000 grant – has grown into a nationally recognized organization with nearly 60 alumni. Over the past decade, we have expanded the Luna Lab Fellowship to a national cohort; established the G. Schirmer Prize, providing publishing access and professional mentorship; launched Adventures in Sound, a beginner-level composition course designed to expand access; and presented free, public masterclasses featuring leading composers and performers.
Central to Luna Lab’s success is our emphasis on direct, sustained mentorship. Fellows work one-on-one with acclaimed professional composers, gaining guidance not only in craft but in navigating the realities of a life in music. Mentor composers have included Valerie Coleman, Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Sarah Gibson, Laura Karpman, Jessie Montgomery, Gabriela Ortiz, and Jeanine Tesori, among many others. These relationships form the foundation of an active alumni network that continues to provide artistic, professional, and peer support well beyond a fellow’s initial participation.
In 2022, after six seasons in residence at Kaufman Music Center, Luna Lab became an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. In 2024, we presented our Festival outside New York for the first time, partnering with Kronos Quartet in San Francisco for the world premieres of fellow works, and collaborated with ChamberQUEER on The Nebula Project, a new commissioning initiative for alumni – further extending our mentor-driven model onto major national stages.
As we celebrate our tenth anniversary, our organization can point to tangible, long-term results. 100% of Luna Lab alumni remain involved in music, and 75% of alumni currently in college are studying composition, many at top conservatories and universities including The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, Columbia University, Mannes School of Music at The New School, Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and New England Conservatory, among others.
With Luna Lab@10, we embark on our most ambitious initiative to date: a large-scale commissioning celebration that brings alumni composers onto major national and international stages. Presented over two seasons and in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Santa Barbara, Cincinnati, Toronto, Denver, Seattle, Austin, Milwaukee, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Sarasota, Louisville, Albuquerque, Munich, Germany, and Svalbard, Norway, these premieres represent a field-level statement – demonstrating what sustained investment in young artists can yield over time.
Through Luna Lab@10, we affirm our central belief: when young composers see themselves supported, commissioned, mentored, and celebrated on major stages, the field becomes more vibrant, more innovative, and more reflective of the society it serves.
Calendar of Events
