The big three local colleges have accepted a sporting challenge, but don't expect buzzer-beaters and fight songs. Not when the event is a celebration of contemporary music.

	U3 Festival All concerts are free; call 412-396-4632 for additional information. Program I: Chamber and electronic music. Music by David Cutler, Eric Moe, Roger Dannenberg, Philip Thompson, David Stock, Eliyahu Tamar and Alan Fletcher. 8 p.m. Tuesday, Duquesne University PNC Recital Hall, Uptown. Program II: Duquesne Symphony Orchestra, Sidney Harth, conductor; and the Carnegie Mellon Wind Symphony, Denis Colwell, conductor. Music by Reza Vali, Fletcher, Nikolai Lopatnikoff and Leonardo Balada, Eric Moe. 8 p.m. Wednesday, Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland. Program III: CMU Contemporary Ensemble, Walter Morales, conductor; and Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble, Stock, conductor. Music by Lynn Purse, Mathew Rosenblum, Nancy Galbraith, Alan Shockley and Roger Zahab. 8 p.m. Thursday, CMU Kresge Theater, Oakland. Program IV: Alberto Almarza , flute; Morales, piano. Music by David Stock, Efrain Amaya, Nancy Galbraith, Vali. 8 p.m. Friday, CMU Alumni Recital Hall, Oakland. Program V: The Pittsburgh Symphony, Daniel Meyer, conductor. Readings of works by Jeremy Sment, Federico Garcia and Nicholas Batko. 10 a.m. Saturday, Heinz Hall, Downtown.

The U3 Festival, a week of new music by faculty members of Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh, is anything but a competition. It's a collaboration designed to show off the talent of the schools' composers and student ensembles. The festival's debut in 2003 was successful enough not only to prompt another but also to expand it.

"It showed that there is high level of composers in our universities," said David Stock, a composer at Duquesne. It also furthered the camaraderie of an already unusually friendly collective, as composers are a notoriously territorial bunch. "We all enjoyed each other's music," he said. "Not everyone knew all of each other's music before."

This year's festival has more concerts, more composers and also the participation of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

"They are the leading music institution in town, and to have that association is great," said Stock. The PSO won't give a concert but instead will read through compositions by three student composers. A reading is an informal performance that allows composers to hear their works in full orchestration.

"It is wonderful for the students to have their music played by one of the best orchestras in the world," Stock said. "They are going to be sweating bullets."

While the festival was organized to present works by living composers, U3 will take time to honor a seminal figure in Pittsburgh composition. The CMU Wind Symphony will perform a piece by Nikolai Lopatnikoff, a CMU faculty composer in the '40s, '50s and '60s.

"He was the dean of Pittsburgh composers," says Stock, who studied with Lopatnikoff.

With all the contemporary music on the program, it may come as a surprise that only one piece is a premiere, by Duquesne composer Lynn Purse. That's a credit to the vitality of the local composing scene -- that many of its composers best works are receiving performances. It also reflects the fact that not all the composers write frequently for the particular university ensembles chosen to participate.

These days, composers are not steadfastly encamped in styles nor are they readily ignoring the audiences desires. A move toward tonality or at least from rigorously academic music has begun to thaw out the once-icy composer-listener relationship. Even so, the harmony that U3 shows between these composers from different schools is probably more important than that in the compositions themselves for the health of new music in Pittsburgh. Less infighting means more focus on promoting the craft.

"It is not Pitt vs. CMU vs. Duquesne," says Stock.

In this case, everyone wins.