I CARE IF YOU LISTEN (ICIYL) is an award-winning multimedia hub for living music creators powered by American Composers Forum (ACF). Founded in December 2010 by Thomas Deneuville, ICIYL was born from a desire to create a dedicated space for talking about contemporary classical music. Through a unique blend of music criticism, promotional features, and multimedia content, ICIYL strives to be a leading advocate for artists who have been historically underrepresented or marginalized in Western classical music by highlighting equitable programming, facilitating challenging conversations, cultivating a safe platform, and creating educational resources.
After 10 years of operation as an all-volunteer enterprise, I CARE IF YOU LISTEN was acquired by ACF in September 2020. Amanda Cook, Editor since 2017, continues to serve in that role as a member of the ACF staff. Editorial decisions are made at the discretion of the Editor, in alignment with ACF’s organizational priorities. Joining with ACF enables ICIYL to equitably pay its contributors and staff while developing a platform that furthers ICIYL and ACF’s shared goals.
Direct promotion of ACF artists and programs can be found on our At ACF page. Critical reviews of ACF-affiliated projects are assigned to an impartial reviewer.
Why the name?
The title is a reference to Who Cares if You Listen?, a famous article by American composer Milton Babbitt published in 1958 in High Fidelity. Although this article is seen as the epitome of academic/serialist snobbery, its title was not the one that Babbitt intended (it was changed without his knowledge or consent before publication). Our title is not directed at Mr. Babbitt, but more at creative forces that look down on their audience, and gatekeepers that create barriers to entry.
Editor
Amanda Cook (she/her) is a music critic and digital editor based in Worcester, MA. She joined the I CARE IF YOU LISTEN team in 2013 as a contributing writer, and she has served as the editor since 2017. Her background in music performance, higher education, and nonprofit administration provides a unique perspective from which to view the current state of contemporary music.
Assistant Editor
A. Kori Hill (she/her) is a musicologist based in the Greater Cincinnati area. She writes on American music, Florence Price, Black composers, and music historiography. She is a program notes annotator for several orchestras and the head writer of Cincinnati Public Radio’s Classics for Kids Blog. She holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Advertising Manager
Meg Huskin (she/her) is a composer and vocalist who tells stories through sound and theatricality. She is a founder of TellTale Opera Theatre in Baltimore, MD, and the Social Media and Marketing Manager at ACF, where she is committed to providing artists with the platform and resources to share their stories.
Founder
With a dual background in mechanical engineering and composition, Thomas Deneuville (he/him) is an interaction designer and a maker. He lives in Freeville, NY, with his wife and two sons, where he writes about creativity, codes, and plays the bagpipe.
Current Contributors
Padideh Aghanoury
Padideh (she/they) grew up playing the cello from a young age and has a deep love for the experimental and avant-garde. She loves to write about music.
Vanessa Ague
Vanessa Ague (she/her) is a violinist and writer who runs the experimental music blog, The Road to Sound, and writes for Bandcamp Daily, The Wire, Pitchfork, and the Quietus, among others. She is a recent graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Kevin Baldwin
Kevin Baldwin, D.M.A., (he/him) is a composer, saxophonist, and visual artist, focusing on graphic and alternate notations. Kevin, based in greater Boston, is the founder of eyeMusic Projects, an ongoing collection of visual experimentations with notational elements.
Stephanie Ann Boyd
Michigan-born, Manhattan-based composer Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) (she/her) writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles.
Katie Brown
Katie Brown (she/her) is a violist, podcaster, and educator from Evanston, IL. She is co-host of Classically Black Podcast, co-founder of the International Society for Black Musicians, and currently plays with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.
Donna Lee Davidson
Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Donna (she/her) is the youngest of 11 children. She is an orchestral percussionist, jazz vibraphonist, and a writer with non-fiction life experiences.
Christine S. Escobar
Christine S. Escobar (she/her) is Founder and Editor of Represent Classical: the premier news source featuring BIPOC classically trained musicians and scholars.
Jasmine IVANNA Espy
Jasmine IVANNA Espy (she/they) is a journalist turned filmmaker also advocating for the Hidradenitis Suppurativa community through writing and documentary film.
Anne Goldberg-Baldwin
Anne H. Goldberg-Baldwin, D.M.A. (she/her) blurs the definitions of music and dance as a composer, choreographer, performer, and educator. She is Assistant Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Dance at the University of the Arts.
Dalanie Harris
Dalanie Harris (she/her) is a Los Angeles-based musician, podcaster, and writer. Her current research interests include intersections of music, history, and culture in Black America.
A. Kori Hill
A. Kori Hill (she/her) is a musicologist based in the Greater Cincinnati area. She writes on American music, Florence Price, Black composers, and music historiography. Kori holds a PhD in musicology from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Michelle Hromin
Michelle Hromin (she/her) is a Croatian-American multidisciplinary artist who specializes in contemporary clarinet performance, improvisation, writing, and curation.
Forrest Howell
Forrest (he/him) is a near-nomadic musician and writer who is curious about modern taste and aesthetics. He is currently an AmeriCorps volunteer in Denver.
Lauren Ishida
Lauren Ishida (she/her) is a soprano specializing in contemporary music. She is the Director of Promotion for Schott Music New York.
Jacob Kopcienski
Jacob Kopcienski (he/him) is a multifaceted artist and scholar who explores sound, listening practices, identity, and technology through writing, performance, creative collaboration, and community-building projects. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Musicology at the Ohio State University.
Christian Kriegeskotte
Christian Kriegeskotte (he/him) is a composer, writer and budding audiophile who has worked professionally in feature film music production, artist management and the mainstream record industry. He received his BFA and Master of Music from Carnegie Mellon University and is currently based in Pittsburgh, PA.
Julia Kuhlman
Julia Kuhlman (she/her) is a saxophonist and musicologist who makes unnatural noises and writes outlandish things about them. She is currently based in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
Yaz Lancaster
Yaz Lancaster (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist focused on relational aesthetics, collage, and liberatory politics. They love chess, horror movies, and trills.
Connie Li
Connie Li’s (she/her) work concerns our dynamic relationships to place, memory and embodied knowledge, and kin. Her favorite river is the Chattahoochee.
Tristan McKay
Tristan McKay (he/him) is a pianist, visual artist, and scholar based in NYC. His research interests include semiotics and graphic notations, and he teaches at SUNY New Paltz. Tristan plays ice hockey in his free time.
Esteban Meneses
Esteban (he/him) is a freelance arts and music writer based in Orlando. He’s a 2022 fellow of the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, and a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, contributing to its online journal Classical Voice North America. He holds a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Rollins College.
Clover Nahabedian
Clover Nahabedian (she/her) is a trans artist living in New England. She is a founding member of Strange Trace Opera and plays in the band Cheap City.
Lana Norris
Lana Norris (she/her) is a pianist and music journalist convinced that both science and art are aesthetic. She brings an interest in diplomacy to her coverage of new music, and enjoys sacred choral and shameless pop. She is based in New York City, Munsee Lenape and Wappinge territory.
Gemma Peacocke
Gemma Peacocke (she/her) is a US-based composer from New Zealand. Her rescue dog Mila is a standard poodle from Korea. Their musical tastes differ markedly.
Caroline Potter
Caroline Potter (she/her) is an award-winning writer and academic, specializing in French music, based in London.
Sofía Rocha
Sofía Rocha (she/her) is a Providence-based composer and conductor. She likes taking nature walks, cooking vegan food, and following endless Wikipedia hyper-link rabbit holes. Sofía is also a PhD student in Music and Multimedia Composition at Brown University.
Thulasi Seshan
Thulasi Seshan (she/her) is an Indian-American writer, researcher, and classical music lover. She lives in Chicago.
Chrysanthe Tan
Chrysanthe Tan (they/them) is a composer, sound artist, and radio host whose special interests include Star Wars, dinosaurs, and theme park sound design.
Ciyadh Wells
Ciyadh Wells’ (she/her) mission is to utilize the impact of music old and new to manifest moments of meaningful change. She directs the Margins Guitar Collective.
