The Mizzou New Music Initiative is now accepting applications for eight resident composers to take part in the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF), which will be held Monday, July 24 through Saturday, July 29 on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Georg Friedrich Haas and Dan Visconti will serve as the distinguished guest composers for the 2017 MICF, which will include three public concerts of contemporary music as well as workshops, master classes and other events.
As in years past, Saturday night’s grand finale at the Missouri Theatre will feature the world premieres of new works from each of the eight resident composers, with the acclaimed new music group Alarm Will Sound, conducted by artistic director Alan Pierson, serving as resident ensemble.
The resident composers are selected for the MICF each year through an online portfolio application process. During the Festival, they’ll get composition lessons from the distinguished guest composers and Mizzou faculty, and take part in rehearsals with Alarm Will Sound. Each composer also will receive a professional live recording of their work.
Georg Friedrich Haas
A native of Austria, Haas is a professor of composition at Columbia University in New York City, and previously held dual professorships at the Hochschle für Musik in Basel, Switzerland, and the Kunstuniversität in Graz, Austria.
Considered to be one of the major European composers of his generation, Haas has received many national and international awards, including in 2007 the Grand Austrian State Prize for Music, the country’s highest artistic honor.
His compositions include operas, concertos, and a variety of chamber music, including seven string quartets, and his works have been performed by orchestras and chamber ensembles all over the world. One of Haas’ best-known compositions is “In Vain,” written in 2000 for a 24-piece chamber ensemble and praised as “a modern masterwork” by The New Yorker‘s influential music critic Alex Ross.
Dan Visconti
Visconti is a Chicago-based composer who currently serves as director of artistic programming at Fifth House Ensemble, a concert organization that presents innovative collaborative, educational, and interactive events. Known as an advocate for addressing social issues through music, he also is a sought-after speaker and writer on the subject of the arts as a form of cultural and civic service.
Visconti has earned numerous honors and commissions as a composer, and his works have been played by orchestras in the United States, Europe and Australia and by top interpreters of contemporary music including eighth blackbird, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and many others.
The deadline to apply to become a resident composer for the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival is 5:00 p.m. Central time, Monday, November 21, 2016. For more information or to submit an application, please visit https://app.getacceptd.com/mizzou.
A complete schedule of events, times, dates and venues for the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival will be made available at a later date. For more information, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/.