The University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative have selected eight resident composers for the 2011 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, which will be held Monday, July 11 through Saturday, July 16 in Columbia. They are:
* Kari Besharse, Champaign IL
* David Biedenbender, Ann Arbor MI
* Patrick David Clark, Columbia MO
* Michael-Thomas Foumai, Honolulu HI
* Yotam Haber, New York NY
* Clint Needham, Columbus OH
* Steven Snowden, Austin TX
* Liza White, Berkeley CA
The 2011 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival will include a series of public concerts featuring music from these eight resident composers and other contemporary creators, as well as workshops, master classes and other events.
The Festival’s guest composers for 2011 will be Roger Reynolds, winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for composition and professor at the University of California at San Diego, and Anna Clyne, a native of London who currently serves as the Mead Composer-in- Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The acclaimed new music group Alarm Will Sound, conducted by artistic director Alan Pierson, once again will serve as resident ensemble, as they did for the inaugural Festival in 2010, and the Grammy award-winning soprano Susan Narucki will perform with them as a guest artist.
The eight resident composers were selected through a portfolio application process to create a new work for Alarm Will Sound. During the festival, they will receive composition lessons from Reynolds and Clyne; take part in rehearsals with Alarm Will Sound; give presentations on their music; and receive a premiere performance and professional live recording of their work. The resident composers also will have the opportunity to return to Missouri for a residency at the Sinquefield Reserve sometime during the following academic year.
“Last year a participant described composing for Alarm will Sound as being like driving a Ferrari,” said Jeanne Sinquefield of the Sinquefield Foundation. “It will be fun to see what this year’s composers can do with their ‘car’.”