From left: Colagiovanni, Roberts, Christensen

Three University of Missouri student composers will have their works played by musicians with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in a public reading session at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, at Powell Hall in St. Louis. The public is invited to attend, with no admission charge or RSVP required.

As part of a joint educational venture between the orchestra and the Mizzou New Music Initiative, student composers Mikkel Christensen, Ben Colagiovanni, and Libby Roberts were selected last year by SLSO Resident Conductor Gemma New to write new works for a 40-piece chamber orchestra drawn from the musicians of the St. Louis Symphony.

The resulting compositions are “The Lament of Orpheus” by Roberts; “Fourteen Trees” by Christensen; and “Slow Burn” by Colagiovanni. The three works were first read, played and critiqued in a private session in October, and the composers then had a chance to revise their music for this second, public reading.

Colagiovanni, who grew up in the St. Louis area and attended Clayton High School, is a senior working toward an undergraduate degree in composition at Mizzou. Christensen, who’s from Lockhart, TX, and Roberts, a native of Philadelphia, PA, both are in their second year of study for a master’s degree. They are the second group of Mizzou students to take part in the composer reading program, following Dustin Dunn, Aaron Mencher, and Douglas Osmun in 2017-18.