The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will perform recent works by Yoshiaki Onishi and Alex Berko in a free online concert at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, February 17.

The concert will be available to view on the University of Missouri School of Music’s YouTube channel and the Mizzou New Music Facebook page.

“Antefenas-Studies” was written in 2018 by Onishi, who is a postdoctoral fellow in composition at the University of Missouri School of Music and serves as the Ensemble’s assistant conductor. Using both live instrumentation and prerecorded electronics, the piece explores “the kinetics of one sound responding to another, eventually forming the perception of a dialogue.”

Berko’s “Living in Color” (2019) was inspired in part by an image by Boston-based artist Melanie Long, and uses variations on an R&B-flavored three-chord progression to develop “a theme of connectedness and tangling of worlds.”

Both works will be performed live by the Ensemble during the stream, which also will include a prerecorded interview with Berko and Stefan Freund.

Freund, a cellist, composer, conductor, professor of composition, and artistic director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative, is the director of the Mizzou New Music Ensemble.

The seven-member Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) is made up of University of Missouri graduate students, and serves as the repertory group for the Mizzou New Music Initiative. In that capacity, they work with faculty, students, and visiting composers, and give public performances on campus and in the community.

The Ensemble’s members for the 2020-21 season are Johanny Veiga Barbosa, violin; Tâmila Freitas, flute; Stephen Landy, percussion; Jordan Nielsen, percussion; Andy Lewis, cello; Andrew Weile, clarinet; and Evie Werger, piano.