Mizzou International Composers Festival announces resident composers for 2017

The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) has selected eight resident composers to participate in the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF).

Presented by MNMI and the University of Missouri School of Music from Monday, July 24 through Saturday, July 29 in Columbia, the eighth annual MICF will feature world premieres of new works written by each of the selected composers. Listed with their current places of residence, they are:

* Clare Glackin, Los Angeles, CA
* Selim Göncü, Berkeley, CA
* Carolina Heredia, Ann Arbor, MI
* Christopher Mayo, Toronto, Canada
* Aaron Parker, Manchester, England
* Charles Peck, Ithaca, NY
* Amadeus Regucera, Oakland, CA
* Henry Breneman Stewart, Columbia, MO

The resident composers are chosen through a portfolio application process that this year attracted a record 261 entries from 25 different countries, also a record for the MICF. Applications were received from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States.

Four of the resident composers selected for 2017 are originally from outside the US, including Selim Göncü, who was born in Turkey; Carolina Heredia, a native of Argentina; Christopher Mayo, a Canadian; and Aaron Parker, who hails from England.

Henry Breneman Stewart, a graduate student working toward a master’s in composition at Mizzou, will represent the University of Missouri. Stewart was the winner of the 2016 Sinquefield Composition Prize, the university’s highest honor for a student composer.

The 2017 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 distinguished guest composers for 2017 will be George Friedrich Haas, a native of Austria and a professor of composition at Columbia University who is considered to be one of the major European composers of his generation; and Dan Visconti, a Chicago-based composer and concert programmer also known as an advocate for the arts as a form of cultural and civic service.

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 Haas and Visconti; 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 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival will be announced at a later date. For more information, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/.