As has become tradition over the past nine years, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will be performing during the Mizzou International Composers Festival as part of Friday night’s “Mizzou New Music” concert at the Missouri Theatre.

Their portion of the evening’s program will include works by the MICF’s two distinguished guest composers – “Portraits and Repetitions” by Alex Mincek and “Mountain Streams” by Robert Morris – as well as “Near Distance” by Chen Yi (who last week had to withdraw from the festival for medical reasons and was replaced by Morris).

The Mizzou New Music Ensemble is made up of University of Missouri graduate students under the direction of Stefan Freund, professor of composition and artistic director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the MICF. The Ensemble serves as the repertory group for MNMI, working with faculty, students, and visiting composers, and giving public performances on campus and in the community.

In addition to presenting several concerts each year in Columbia, the Ensemble also has performed programs of works by Mizzou composers at the Contemporary Art Museum – St. Louis, the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Science Center, Forest Park, the World Chess Hall of Fame, Cortex Innovation Community, and more.

Since the MICF happens in the summer when school’s not in session, the current members of the Ensemble in any given year are augmented as necessary for the festival by guest musicians, drawn from Mizzou students,  alumni, faculty and staff, as well as the regional community of performers engaged in new music.

For the 2018 MICF, the lineup of players will include Kelariz Keshavarz (flute), Victoria Hargrove (clarinet), Ben Harting (saxophone), Brianna Trainor (percussion), Hannah Hutchins (percussion), Libby Roberts (piano), and Pedro Ramiro (violin), plus freelance Kansas City cellist Sascha Groschang. Mizzou senior Hans Bridger Heruth will conduct the ensemble for Chen’s “Near Distance,” and graduate student Jesus Gomez will conduct the performance of Mincek’s “Portraits and Repetitions”

You can hear some past performances by the Mizzou New Music Ensemble via the embedded player below.