Mr. Drummond was maneuvering the hand-built instruments of a maverick American composer and inventor, Harry Partch.

Founded by Andrew Russo, a young pianist who is making Crumb a trademark, this three-day festival presents some of the most important chamber works by this maverick 73-year-old composer, performed by some notable musicians.

It derived in part from the brutally difficult program of music by Conlon Nancarrow and like-minded maverick composers.

At the same time, it is very much in the spirit of maverick composers like Harry Partch, who built new instruments to realize sounds he could not hear elsewhere.

In his lifetime, Milton Babbitt, the American maverick composer, did his best to scare off listeners with talk of impenetrable mathematical relationships and total serializing of pitches, rhythms, and even timbre.

Drummond then worked as a musician for and assistant to the maverick composer and instrument builder Harry Partch.

CHARLES IVES has a well-deserved reputation as the ultimate maverick composer and flinty New England character.

George Antheil was a maverick composer of quirky works that brim over with character, an element sometimes hinted at in his titles and subtitles.

In Spring 2008, 'Couleurs exotiques' demonstrated how profoundly modern classical music has been influenced by non-European musical cultures; in the same season 'America' showcased the epochal innovations of American maverick composers.

Mr. Morris, using toe work for the women, meets the maverick composer on his own ground, meshing basic ballet exercises and sophisticated, quirky sequences in the same way that Thomson overlays familiar tunes and studies with his own dissonance and textures.