From the outset, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players has been a driving force in the creation of new trends in American music, helping to create a distinctive west coast school of composition. By partnering with famed composers like Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Lou Harrison, Olly Wilson, and John Cage, to the leading voices of successive generations like John Adams, Julia Wolfe, and Du Yun, the group has served as a workshopping ensemble and lightning rod for ideas that have helped shape the music of the last several decades, in the Bay Area and the U.S., and elsewhere across the world.