Continuing its emerging tradition of pairing an acknowledged master and a rising star, the Mizzou New Music Initiative has named Augusta Read Thomas and Daniel Kellogg as guest composers for the 2013 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF).

Formerly known as the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, the MICF will be held from Monday, July 22, 2013 through Saturday, July 27 on the campus of the University of Missouri. As in the past, the 2013 Festival will feature a series of public concerts featuring music from contemporary composers, as well as workshops, master classes and other events. The acclaimed new music group Alarm Will Sound, conducted by artistic director Alan Pierson, once again will serve as resident ensemble.

Thomas currently is professor of composition at the University of Chicago. She formerly taught at Eastman School of Music and Northwestern University, and served as composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2006. Thomas was called “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American music” on the occasion of her induction in 2009 into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has had her music performed by major orchestras and chamber ensembles all over the world, and is the recipient of numerous awards, honors and prizes for her compositions.

Kellogg is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and earned masters and doctoral degrees from the Yale School of Music. He currently works as assistant professor of composition at the University of Colorado. Kellogg has been called “one of the most exciting composers around – technically assured, fascinated by unusual sonic textures, unfailingly easy to listen to, yet far from simplistic,” by the Washington Post.

With the 2013 guest composers confirmed, eight resident composers now will be selected for the Festival through a portfolio application process to create a new work for Alarm Will Sound. During the Festival, they’ll get composition lessons from Thomas and Kellogg; take part in rehearsals with Alarm Will Sound; and receive a premiere performance and professional live recording of their work.

The deadline for submitting an application is November 1, 2012. For more information on applying to become a resident composer for the Mizzou International Composers Festival, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/application.html.

A complete schedule of events, times, dates and venues for the 2013 Mizzou International Composers Festival will be made available at a later date. For more information, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/.