The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) has selected eight resident composers to participate in the 2019 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF).
Presented by MNMI and the University of Missouri School of Music from Monday, July 22 through Saturday, July 27 in Columbia, the tenth 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:
* Theophilus Chandler, Houston TX
* Inti Figgis-Vizueta, Brooklyn NY
* Charles Halka, Bellingham WA
* Chelsea Komschlies, Philadelphia PA
* Aaron Mencher, Columbia MO
* Nicole Murphy, Brisbane, Australia
* Peter Shin, New Haven CT
* Kristina Wolfe, Huddersfield, UK
Two of the resident composers are originally from outside the US. Nicole Murphy is a native of Sydney, Australia, while Inti Figgis-Vizueta, though raised in Washington DC, was born in Dublin, Ireland.
Aaron Mencher, a senior composition major at Mizzou, will represent the University of Missouri. Mencher was the winner of the 2018 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 2019 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.
In celebration of the festival’s tenth year, Donnacha Dennehy and Amy Beth Kirsten will return to the MICF to serve as the two distinguished guest composers for 2019, teaching and consulting with the resident composers and ensemble.
Dennehy, who is considered one of Ireland’s top living composers, is the founder of the new music group Crash Ensemble and an associate professor of music at Princeton University. He previously was a guest composer at the MICF in 2012.
Kirsten is a member of the composition faculty of the Longy School of Music of Bard College. Her works explore theatrical elements of creation, performance, and presentation through music, language, voice, and theatre. She was part of the festival’s first group of resident composers in 2010.
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 Dennehy and Kirsten; 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 2019 Mizzou International Composers Festival will be announced at a later date. For more information, please visit http://composersfestival.missouri.edu/.