Seth Boustead, composer and cofounder of Access Contemporary Music

Reader Chicago / by Jamie Ludwig / August 14, 2025

Seth Boustead is a composer, pianist, and arts manager. Raised by a single mother in Missouri and Arizona, Boustead studied composition at the University of Missouri, then moved to Chicago in 1995. In 2004, he cofounded the nonprofit Access Contemporary Music (ACM), where he still serves as executive director. ACM works to foster a public understanding of classical music as a living tradition open to new players and diverse voices, not a relic that belongs to dead white men in strange wigs. Read More Here.