The Mizzou New Music Initiative has selected eight resident composers to participate in the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival.

Presented by MNMI and the University of Missouri School of Music from Monday, July 20 through Saturday, July 25 in Columbia, the sixth annual MICF (http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/) will feature world premieres of new works written by each of the selected composers.

Listed with their current places of residence, they are (from top left):
* Thomas Dougherty, Houston, TX
* Emily Koh, Waltham, MA
* Andrew McManus, Chicago, IL
* Justin Pounds, Columbia, MO
* Alessandro Ratoci, Lausanne, Switzerland
* Christopher Stark, St. Louis, MO
* Anthony Vine, Brooklyn, NY
* Conrad Winslow, Brooklyn, NY

The resident composers are chosen through a portfolio application process that this year attracted 231 entries from around the world, another new record for the MICF.

This year’s international representatives are Emily Koh, a native of Singapore currently pursuing a Ph.D. in composition and theory at Brandeis University in Boston; and Alessandro Ratoci, who was born in Tuscany, Italy and now teaches computer music at the Haute Ecole de Musique (HEMU) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Justin Pounds, a St. Louis native working on a master’s degree in composition at Mizzou, will represent the University of Missouri. The 2015 group also includes another current Missourian, Christopher Stark, who grew up in Montana and now is an assistant professor of composition at Washington University in St. Louis.

The 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival will include a series of public concerts featuring music from the resident composers and other contemporary creators, as well as workshops, master classes, and other events.

The Festival’s guest composers for 2015 will be Hans Abrahamsen, a Danish composer whose spare yet lyrical works reflect his involvement in the “New Simplicity” movement of the 1960s; and Andrew Norman, a Los Angeles-based composer and teacher at the USC Thornton School of Music.

The acclaimed new music group Alarm Will Sound, conducted by artistic director Alan Pierson, once again will serve as resident ensemble, as they have since the MICF began in 2010.

During the festival, the eight resident composers will receive composition lessons from Abrahamsen and Norman; take part in rehearsals with Alarm Will Sound; give public presentations on their music; and receive a premiere performance and professional live recording of a new work created specifically for the MICF and Alarm Will Sound.

A complete schedule of events, times, dates and venues for the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival will be announced at a later date. For more information, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/.