By JOEL SACHS

Josef Bardanashvili (Photo by Dover Kosashvili)

Many students are perplexed about how to find really new repertory. Established masterpieces are easy enough to locate; but beating the crowd to interesting music is another matter. Of course, the simplest solution is to ask a composer to write a piece. In this way, many fine collaborations with composition students have been born.

A good first step is to contact publishers who are active in new music. Most of them eagerly promote their products, will send perusal copies to performers, and increasingly provide sound samples on their Web sites. This path, however, is becoming very problematic. Multinational corporations are buying famous old publishers, economizing by eliminating staff, and ordering the promotion departments to concentrate only upon the most profitable composers. While the business model makes sense, it is a disaster for art because it locks out newcomers. Left on their own, many composers self-publish, use their Web sites as gateways to the public, and economize by e-mailing their scores. The system works well—if (the big if) one can find out who the composers are. My second bit of advice therefore is to cultivate sources. Ask everyone who performs, "What's new?" Learn about national music-information centers. Look for festival and concert programs and investigate new names.

New Juilliard Ensemble Peter Jay Sharp Theater Saturday, September 30, 8 p.m. Free tickets available Sept. 15 in the Juilliard Box Office.

I face the problem annually in programming the New Juilliard Ensemble season and the Museum of Modern Art's Summergarden festival (which alternates programs of new music, performed by members and alumni of the N.J.E., with jazz concerts curated by Jazz at Lincoln Center). In an effort to unify the two components of the summer concerts, Jazz at Lincoln Center, MoMA, and I agreed to confine ourselves to music that has never been played in New York. That left a big playing field.

Melissa Hui (Photo by Wim Jansen)

I like a global repertory, which refreshes the ear, reflects today's music, and mirrors the international constituency of both MoMA and Juilliard. (In touring, however, I like to bring American music abroad.) In addition to commercial music publishers, my resources include stacks of scores and recordings that I receive directly from composers who may suffer neglect because they do not have publishers or publicists. Unfortunately, the huge quantity makes it almost impossible to look at or listen to everything that crosses the transom. (I estimate that I have received some 2,000 CDs.) One solution has been to work on a project basis: Once the emphasis or instrumentation of a program has been determined, I send out enquiries to publishers and music information centers, and dig through the music I have received from composers. (Alas, I have to eliminate immediately some marvelous pieces because they are too quiet for the out-of-doors venue of Summergarden.) Since unconvincing music has always far outnumbered the convincing—test my statement by looking at Beethoven's contemporaries—it is especially rewarding to find an unknown composer of real strength, whatever his or her style may be. Then comes the pleasure of informing that composer (who probably was resigned to seeing his or her music disappear into unlabelled boxes) that a performance is on the horizon!

Salvatore Sciarrino (Photo by Mauro Fermariello)

Two illustrations: Armenian composer Tigran Ayvazyan wrote his String Quartet three years ago, when he was only 18. Like most musicians living in impoverished countries, he struggles to keep his music alive but lacks resources to bring it to the outside world. That I had his piece is a tribute to Sahan Arzruni, a Juilliard alumnus who goes out of his way to help his fellow Armenians. It was really exciting to hear music with such imagination from such a young man. As I planned the quartet program, however, I found that most of the best pieces tended toward introversion, which is spiritually satisfying but needs counterbalances. I had a lively string quartet by Australian composer Carl Vine, but needed something to close the concert with a bang. Time to call Elliott Sharp, one of the grand masters of "downtown" music, who packs his compositions with energy and loves to work with Juilliard players. To my delight, he had been wanting to write a string quartet and happily put it on the front burner for the concert. Eye in the Sky he called it with a touch of paranoia, and our quartet had the pleasure of giving its world premiere.

Huw Watkins (Photo by Hanya Chlala)

What is true of planning Summergarden is also true of the main New Juilliard Ensemble season, which commences September 30 in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. How-ever, for the latter, I do not particularly worry about whether a piece has ever been done here. I simply want students to experience the idea that "new music" is not just anything written after Brahms. Taking a cue from German radio stations, my general guideline is that the repertory should be up to 10 years old, more or less.

Occasionally, however, pure desire intervenes. Among the scores I have been saving for the right moment is Che sai guardiano, della notte ("What, guardian, do you know of the night"), for clarinet and ensemble, by Salvatore Sciarrino. Composed in 1979, it is ancient by N.J.E. standards. I had had to postpone it because of commitments to other clarinet solos, but now the time was right—and I wanted to give a solo to student clarinetist Sean Rice, since his three most active N.J.E. colleagues had played a triple concerto last year. Above all, I had developed a deep fondness for Sciarrino and his music since presenting two concerts of it in the 2003 Lincoln Center Festival in conjunction with his extraordinarily original operas, and getting to know him. To my amazement, it turned out that the piece has never been done in the United States. Clarinetist Rice will therefore have a nice premiere to his credit—but, as in most of Sciarrino's music, he'll be playing near the edge of inaudibility.

Luis de Pablo (Photo courtesy of Archive Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, Milano)

As it happens, the entire N.J.E. repertory for 2006-07 is new to New York. Most of it makes its first appearance in the Western Hem-isphere; five pieces have been composed for this season, bringing the total of world premieres given by the N.J.E. in its 14 seasons to about 80. This year's offerings include music from Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Spain, Tajikistan, the U.S., and Wales. (Some of the composers were born in places such as Argentina, Brazil, the Republic of Georgia, and Hong Kong, but have relocated.) In addition to Sciarrino, the September program includes music by the second youngest composer of the season—Huw Watkins, a 30-year-old Welshman—and the oldest composer of this season, Spaniard Luis de Pablo (now 75). Completing the program are

Hong-Kong-born Canadian Melissa Hui and Georgia-born Israeli Josef Bardanashvili, whose Steps was much enjoyed on an N.J.E. program in 2004.

I never assume that every performer or listener will share my taste and like every piece, but I can guarantee that there will be plenty of variety.

Joel Sachs, director of the New Juilliard Ensemble and the annual Focus! Festival, has been a faculty member since 1970.