While the current pandemic-related restrictions may be limiting some in-person interactions, Mizzou students still are getting opportunities to work with and learn from composers and performers from throughout the world of new music.

For example, this month new music ensemble Duo Cortona and composer Evan Chambers both will take part in virtual residencies for MNMI.

Chambers (pictured, top left) is a professor of composition at the University of Michigan whose works have been performed by the Cincinnati, Kansas City, Memphis, New Hampshire, and Albany Symphonies, among others. Recordings of his music have been released by labels such as Albany Records, the Foundation Russolo-Pratella, Cambria, Clarinet Classics, Equilibrium, and Centaur.

During his residency, Chambers will give private lessons to composition students; make a presentation to this semester’s composition seminar; and coach the Mizzou New Music Ensemble in the performance of his work “longing for peace in the garden of lost children.,” which they’ll perform as part of the School of Music’s online “Monday Mashup” concert on Monday, November 16.

Duo Cortona, the husband and wife team of violinist Ari Streisfeld and mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway (pictured, bottom left), is a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to the creation of new works for their unique instrumentation. Both Streisfeld and Calloway are faculty members at the University of South Carolina School of Music.

Founded at and named for the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy, Duo Cortona has done performances and residencies across the USA, including at the Resonant Bodies Festival; the SONiC Festival and The Stone, both in New York City; Contemporary Undercurrents of Song Project in Princeton, NJ; New Music on the Point in Vermont; the Southern Exposure Series for New Music; East Carolina New Music Initiative; University of Wisconsin; College of Charleston; and more.

During their residency for Mizzou, the duo will read and record new works from student composers Isabelle Borchardt, Ben Rouder, and Sam Whitty, with other composition students also observing the session. In addition, they’ll make a presentation to composition students on Friday, November 13, and record a concert on video that will be available for viewing online at a later date.

The concert will feature works by Evan Chambers and Mizzou professor Carolina Heredia, as well as pieces by Amadeus Regucera, who was a resident composer at the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival; Robert Morris, a guest composer at the 2018 MICF; and Annika Socolofsky, who visited Mizzou for a residency in 2019.