Charles Amirkhanian, Executive and Artistic Director of new music champion Other Minds (OM), has announced the organization's plans for three major initiatives to ring in the new year. First is Other Minds' 17th annual festival, to take place in San Francisco from March 1st - 3rd, 2012 at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. Second is the release of a new chamber music recording, Scenes from a Séance, an album of compositions by Henry Cowell, George Antheil, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Alan Hovhaness and eleven others, performed by violinist Kate Stenberg and pianist Eva Maria Zimmermann. The recording, which features three world premieres, is to be released in early 2012. Lastly, Other Minds will issue the complete works of Carl Ruggles for the first time on CD. The recordings, featuring the Buffalo Philharmonic under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, were originally released on Columbia Masterworks in 1980, have never been issued on CD, and have been out of print for decades. Other Minds' 2-CD Ruggles set will be released in February 2012.

Widely recognized as "the premier new music festival on the West Coast" (L.A.Times), the Other Minds Festival will again present an exciting and diverse assemblage of important voices in the music of our time. "Every year we bring to San Francisco the excitement of unknown musical riches that rarely make their way to this corner of the planet," says Mr.Amirkhanian. "Our hope is to bring to San Francisco, from wherever they live, the most inventive people making music in the classical and jazz traditions today. Recently I've been investigating the scenes in Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Reykjavík and over the next few years you'll hear the best composers from the far North." One of the principal aims of Other Minds is to stimulate dialogue both among the composers whose music will be featured at the Festival, and between the composers and Festival audiences. To that end, OM has invited nine composers of differing ages, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, and compositional styles to the 17th Festival: Harold Budd (USA), Gloria Coates (USA/Germany), John Kennedy (USA), Ikue Mori (Japan/USA), Tyshawn Sorey (USA), Simon Steen-Andersen (Denmark/Germany), Øyvind Torvund (Norway), Ken Ueno (USA) and Lotta Wennäkoski (Finland). To encourage a spirited exchange of views, OM invites all featured composers to a residency at a beautiful artists' retreat in the South Bay hills for four days prior to the Festival concerts, where they get to know one another, engage in dialogue and preview their works in a private, relaxed setting.

Each concert of Festival 17 will be presented at 8pm, and will be preceded by a panel discussion at 7pm. The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF) is located at 3200 California Street / San Francisco, CA 94118. Single tickets (from $20-$40), and festival passes for all three concerts (from $51-$102), are available at the JCCSF box office (415-292-1233), or online at www.jccsf.org/arts-ideas/performances/music/other-minds-17/ .

In 2011, Other Minds inaugurated the Other Minds Composer Fellowship, a program designed to provide high quality artistic training and practical career guidance for young composers at a pivotal point in their early careers. Over 100 composers applied for the four positions available in the 2011 program, which was by any measure a tremendous success. The OM Composer Fellowship will be offered again at Other Minds 17. Fellows will participate in a series of residency events from Sunday, February 26th through Saturday, March 3rd 2012, including lecture-presentations, panel discussions, workshops and seminars. Fellows will frequently have the opportunity to interact with OM Festival composers and musicians, through observation of the OM Festival Residency, roundtable discussions, and informal gatherings. Fellows will be invited to observe dress rehearsals for all mainstage Festival concerts, and receive free admission to all Festival events. Works by OM Fellows will be performed by the Other Minds Ensemble in a concert on Wednesday, February 29th 2012, at 7:30pm,venue to be announced in December . Tickets are limited for this special concert and must be purchased separately. Seats may be reserved starting January 16^th 2012 by phone (415-934-8134) or email: fellowship.

All panel discussions and concerts of Other Minds Festival 17 and Fellowship will be recorded and made available as part of the Other Minds Archive on www.radiOM.org.

Other Minds, a not-for-profit organization devoted to supporting new music, was founded in 1995 by Charles Amirkhanian and art curator/film producer Jim Newman. In addition to presenting concerts, mounting its annual festival, recording at least one CD per year and expanding the radiOM.org database, Other Minds also sponsors film screenings each season, the most recent being the presentation in September 2011 of an entire evening of rare films by and interviews with George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Ben Vautier, Nam June Paik and more as part of a three-event celebration of the historic influence of Fluxus on the occasion of its 50^th anniversary.