The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) has selected eight resident composers to participate in the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF).
Presented by MNMI and the University of Missouri School of Music from Monday, July 23 through Saturday, July 28 in Columbia, the ninth 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:
* Oren Boneh, Berkeley, CA
* Christine Burke, Iowa City, IA
* Viet Cuong, Philadelphia, PA
* Amanda Feery, Princeton, NJ
* Douglas Osmun, Columbia, MO
* Gemma Peacocke, Princeton, NJ
* Igor Santos, Chicago, IL
* Peter Shin, Los Angeles, CA
The resident composers are chosen through a portfolio application process that this year attracted 244 entries from 22 different countries. Applications were received from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Three of the resident composers selected for 2018 are originally from outside the US: Amanda Feery, a native of Offaly, Ireland; Gemma Peacocke, who’s from Hamilton, New Zealand; and Igor Santos, born in Curitiba, Brazil.
Douglas Osmun, a graduate student working toward a master’s in composition at Mizzou, will represent the University of Missouri. Osmun was the winner of the 2017 Sinquefield Composition Prize, the university’s highest honor for a student composer. Resident composer Peter Shin also has a Missouri connection, as he was born and raised in Kansas City.
The 2018 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 2018 will be Chen Yi, a native of Guangzhou, China who is a distinguished professor of composition at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Alex Mincek, an assistant professor, composition and music technology at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and a co-founder and artistic director of the Wet Ink Ensemble.
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 Chen and Mincek; 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 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival will be announced at a later date. For more information, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/.