The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will play works from four award-winning composers in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 22 at Whitmore Recital Hall on the University of Missouri campus. Admission is free for Mizzou students, faculty and staff with ID, $5 for the general public.
The program will include two pieces from composers visiting Mizzou this year and two from undergraduate students majoring in composition at the university.
“Rhapsodies” by David Liptak is a three-movement work from 1992 that showcases contrasting timbral colors in the ensemble. Liptak, a composition professor at the Eastman School of Music and winner of a 2013 Koussevitzky Music Foundation commission, was in residence last month at Mizzou and worked with the Ensemble to help them prepare for this performance.
“Mouthpiece: Segment of the 4th Letter,” written in 2007 by Erin Gee, uses an unusual collection of instruments and techniques to create a foreign world of breathy sounds. Gee, who teaches at the University of Illinois, won a 2015 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and will serve as a distinguished guest composer at this summer’s Mizzou International Composers Festival.
“Of Stained Glass and Hymnody” was composed in 2015 by Dustin Dunn, a sophomore Sinquefield Scholar at Mizzou and winner of the Springfield Symphony’s 2016 Missouri Composition Competition. Using chimes and vibraphone to emulate church bells, Dunn’s work mixes hymn-like melodies with fast flourishes to create a fantasy of sounds associated with churches.
“Forest Park Rhapsody” was written in 2014 by Benedetto Colagiovanni, a junior Sinquefield Scholar at Mizzou, for a benefit for the St. Louis not-for-profit organization Forest Park Forever. The work offers a musical evocation of the park’s history from its 19th century beginnings to the present day, and was Colagiovanni’s winning submission for the “Young Artist” award in the 2016 Music Teachers National Association’s composition competition.
The eight-member Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) is made up of University of Missouri graduate students under the direction of Stefan Freund, a cellist, composer and associate professor. The Ensemble’s members for the 2015-16 season are Rachel Czech, cello; José Martinez, percussion; Rebecca McDaniel, percussion; Gyumi Rha, piano; Jeremiah Rittel, clarinets; Panagiotis Skyftas, saxophones; Erin Spencer, flute; and Britney Stutz, violin. For this performance, the Ensemble will be joined by guest musicians Trey Makler, oboe; and Mike Peiffer, viola.