The Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) will open its 2011-12 season with a concert at 8:00 p.m., Monday, October 10 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the University of Missouri campus. Admission to the concert is free and open to the public.

The concert will feature a program written entirely by Missouri composers and including three world premiere performances, said Stefan Freund, who directs the Ensemble.

“Drumming,” composed in 2011 by Mizzou senior Joe Widinger, is “filled with rhythmic energy as figures are passed amongst members of the ensemble,” said Freund, while Mizzou graduate student Grant Fonda’s “Amelia: 1937” (2011) is an orchestrated homage to legendary aviator Amelia Earhart.

Donovan Tousignant, another MU undergrad, is the composer of “Sleeper: Dreamer pt. 2” (2011), which Freund said “includes a wide range of expression from intimate solos to majestically broad climaxes.” To complete the program, Patrick David Clark, a Mizzou graduate student and winner of last year’s Sinquefield Composition Prize, will conduct a performance of his 1995 work “Rhyming Shapes.”

The six-member Mizzou New Music Ensemble is made up of University of Missouri graduate students under the direction of Freund, a cellist, composer and associate professor, and serves as the repertory group for the Mizzou New Music Initiative, an array of programs intended to position the University of Missouri School of Music as a leading center in the areas of composition and new music.

The Ensemble’s members for the 2011-12 season are Stephanie Berg, clarinet; Ryan Borden, percussion; Young Kim, flute; Matthew Pierce, cello; David Snow, violin; and Renata Tavernard, piano. As the repertory group for the Initiative, they work with faculty, students and visiting composers, and give public performances on campus and in the community.

After the season opener, the Ensemble will present three more concerts this academic year at Whitmore Recital Hall, on Monday, December 5; Sunday, March 4, and Monday, April 16.