Commissioning is still around.
When my grandmother died my parents commissioned a piece in remembrance.
I thought it was an incredible gesture. Of course, then it had to be performed somewhere, which was another significant gesture done by many local musicians.

I think it was about an 80 piece band or so, very cool experience.
I was living out of state and flew in the day of to take part, trumpet in hand and score in my case.
One of the lead trumpet guys I'd never met kinda looked at me funny (like who is this?), and I just told him "We'll be OK, I actually knew her. I'm ready." I had one 4 bar solo .. easy job.
I hadn't played in a lot of years, but was prepared and I think that was the last time I actually performed with my brothers, probably the only time with one of them (the one with a doctorate in music). I used to play a lot with the other.
Talk about bitter/sweet.

Make your sound your own!
.. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome