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innova Recordings was founded in 1982 as a way to document
the McKnight Fellowship winners offered by its parent organization, the
Minnesota (now “American”) Composers Forum. During the course of
these early years it produced several sampler LPs featuring the works of a
range of Minnesota composers, many of whom have since gone on to national
prominence: Eric Stokes, Libby Larsen, Paul Schoenfield, and Steven Paulus.
With the advent of the compact disc, innova began releasing selected highlights
from the top ensembles — such as the Dale Warland Singers, Saint Paul
Chamber Orchestra and the Alexander String Quartet — that had been on the
Composers Forum concert seasons.
In 1994 innova opened its doors to artists with a finished master tape wanting
access to its established distribution network. Under this scheme, the
Recording Assistance Program, innova expanded its catalog considerably and now
produces more than 25 CDs per year.
Several projects have brought national attention to the label: Philip
Blackburn’s field recordings from Vietnam (Stilling Time) and his archival series of the works of Harry Partch and Henry Brant. Prominent titles also include GVSU's recording of Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians", Douglas J Cuomo's "Arjuna's Dilemma" and Rudresh Mahanthappa's "Apti."
Other innova releases have earned
awards and nominations for Grammy, Emmy, and Pulitzer prizes, while numerous
titles have received wide acclaim and charted significantly.
Innova is a wing of the St. Paul-based American Composers Forum, the
nation’s largest composer service organization. We occupy a niche in the
world of non-profits that allows us to act as part service, part business. With
the aid of our $1 million endowment from the McKnight Foundation we are able to subsidize admin costs to a considerable degree and keep costs reasonable for artists (who benefit from receiving 100% of all income–innova takes nothing).
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