The University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative have awarded the 2018 Sinquefield Composition Prize to Aaron Mencher.

Mencher (pictured) is a junior and Sinquefield Scholar at Mizzou, studying composition with Carolina Heredia. He submitted “Bluish Orange,” a work written for flute, clarinet, and saxophone, to the competition and was selected for the prize by a panel of independent judges.

The adjudicators for the 2018 competition were Jennifer Jolley, assistant professor of composition at Ohio Wesleyan University; LJ White, lecturer in composition at Washington University; and Yoshiaki Onishi, a freelance composer in Columbia, MO.

Now in its 13th year, the Sinquefield Composition Prize is the top award for a composition student at Mizzou.

As this year’s winner, Mencher now will be commissioned to write an original work for Mizzou’s University Wind Ensemble, conducted by Brian Silvey, which will premiere it as part of the Chancellor’s Arts Showcase on Monday, April 9, 2018 at the Missouri Theatre in Columbia. With the commission, Mencher also receives a cash prize for the production of the score and parts, and will have his work professionally recorded.

Coming to the University of Missouri from John’s Creek, GA, a suburb of Atlanta, Aaron Mencher also is one of three Mizzou student composers selected this year to take part in reading sessions of new works with members of the St. Louis Symphony.

His piece “Fast-Forward” recently won the American Modern Ensemble’s composition competition in the Young Artist category for composers under the age of 22. In conjunction with this award, Mencher’s piece “Rise” will be performed by cellist Dave Eggar in a concert in November at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY.

In 2016, Mencher won the Boston New Music Initiative’s Young Composers Competition with his work “Uncertainly Yours,” which was performed by the Mizzou New Music Ensemble as part of their season-opening concert in October in Columbia, and then by BNMI’s ensemble in November in Boston.
Mencher’s piece “New” won awards in the 2015 NAfME Student Composers Competition and the 2016 American Prize in Composition – Band/Wind Ensemble, Student Division competition. It has been performed by the All-National Concert Band and Mizzou’s University Wind Ensemble, and has been published by Murphy Music Press.

The other finalists for the 2018 Sinquefield Composition Prize were Dustin Dunn, Jake Smucker, Ben Rouder, and Ben Colagiovanni.