The Committee for the Promotion of New Music was a membership organization which sought to find the best new composers and to help support their careers, especially in the UK.
Mátyás Seiber and
Roy Douglas were also among the founding members of the Committee.
Ralph Vaughan Williams agreed to become president with the proviso that it "avoid all cliques [and] give a welcome to all good work in whatever style or school". By October 1951, a draft amended Constitution had been prepared, and on 27 May 1952 the
Society for the Promotion of New Music met for its inaugural meeting. It had commissioned a new piece from Francis Chagrin to mark the event but he was ill and unable to complete the work. Chagrin died on 10 November 1972. At his request, his
Lamento appassionato for string orchestra was played instead. This was one of the few times his own work was ever performed at an SPNM event. The Francis Chagrin Fund for Young Composers was established in his memory in 1973 and continues today. From 1993 onward SPNM awarded the annual
Butterworth Prize for Composition. In its first 50 years, some 9,000 scores were submitted to the SPNM, resulting in 850 composers being represented in its concerts. On 1 October 2008, the SPNM merged with the British Music Information Centre (BMIC), the Contemporary Music Network and the
Sonic Arts Network, forming a new organisation to promote contemporary music in the UK called
Sound and Music. ==References==