The Mizzou New Music Ensemble’s first concert of the 2018-19 season will feature works by two composers who are visiting the University of Missouri campus this fall, and more.
The Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday, October 15 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the Mizzou campus. Admission is free and open to the public.
The concert will include “Divertissement” by composer Yevgeniy Sharlat, who will be in Columbia the first week in October; and “Sinatra Shag” and “Jackie’s Song” by multiple Grammy Award winner Michael Daugherty, who’s visiting Mizzou for a residency on Monday, October 8 and Tuesday, October 9. Both Sharlat and Daugherty will spend time during their residencies coaching the Ensemble on the performances of their works.
“Divertissement,” written by Sharlat in 2006 for flute, clarinet, violin, and cello, showcases all four instruments in individual caprices, alternating with slow movements that provide contrast.
“Sinatra Shag” was composed by Daugherty in 1997. It’s one of a series of works inspired by the architecture and popular culture of Las Vegas in the 1960s, incorporating “chromatically ascending passages, swinging lounge instrumental riffs and swirling glisses…looped and layered virtuosically throughout the composition, like a multi-colored shag carpet.”
“Jackie’s Song,” also from 1997, is a work for solo cello that was written as the overture to Daughtery’s opera “Jackie O.”
“Arpége,” a piece from 1986 by Italian composer Franco Donatoni, will complete the program. The work is a series of linked vignettes, each at a different tempo, featuring colorful interplay among various instrumental combinations.
The seven-member Mizzou New Music Ensemble is made up of University of Missouri graduate students under the direction of Stefan Freund, a cellist, composer, conductor, professor of composition, and artistic director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative.
The Ensemble’s members for the 2018-19 season are Hannah Hutchins, percussion; Ann Mozina, flutes; Pedro Ramiro, violin; Elisabeth Roberts, piano; Brianna Trainor, percussion; Cameron Tubbs, cello; and Austin Wright, clarinets. Post-doctoral fellow Yoshiaki Onishi is the Ensemble’s assistant conductor.