The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Angélica Negrón  as one of the two distinguished guest composers for the 2022  Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF). The Festival, scheduled Monday, July 25 through Saturday, July 30, 2022 on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia, will also welcome Guest Composer Meredith Monk.

Angélica Negrón   Photo credit: Catalina Kulczar

MICF will feature concerts of music by Negrón, Monk, and other contemporary composers performed in front of live audiences, along with in-person workshops, master classes, and other events.

As a distinguished Guest Composer for the 2022 MICF, Negrón will lead a workshop with the Resident Composers; make a public presentation on her music; and work with the groups who will be playing her music at the Festival.

Negrón will have several works performed at the 2022 MICF. At 7:30 pm on Monday, July 25 at the Sheryl Crow Recital Hall in the Sinquefield Music Center, Mizzou students will perform Negrón’s 2018 composition, gone, written for Sō Percussion. On Wednesday, July 27 at Sheryl Crow Recital Hall, the Mizzou new Music Ensemble will perform her 2020 composition, Conversación a distancia, written for Ensemble Pi. And on Thursday, July 28, MICF Ensemble-in-Residence Alarm Will Sound will perform Negrón’s 2017 Places, a movement from a larger piece titled Mapping, commissioned by the Albany Symphony and arranged for AWS.

For a complete schedule of events, times, dates, and venues for the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival, please visit the MICF website.

Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choir, and film. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2). The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise.” Negrón has been commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, loadbang, Prototype Festival, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Sō Percussion, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, the Louisville Orchestra, and the New York Botanical Garden, among others.

Ms. Negrón received an early education in piano and violin at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, where she later studied composition under the guidance of composer Alfonso Fuentes. She holds a master’s degree in music composition from New York University, where she studied with Pedro da Silva. She pursued doctoral studies at The Graduate Center (CUNY), studying composition with Tania León.

Ms. Negrón is also active as an educator, and is currently a teaching artist for New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. She has collaborated with artists like Sō Percussion, Lido Pimienta, Mathew Placek, Sasha Velour, Cecilia Aldarondo, Mariela Pabón & Adrienne Westwood, and is a founding member of the tropical electronic band, Balún. Angélica was recently an Artist-in-Residence at WNYC’s The Greene Space, working on El Living Room, a 4-part offbeat variety show and playful multimedia exploration of sound and story, personal history, and belonging. She was recently named the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize.

Upcoming premieres include works for the Seattle Symphony, LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic Project 19 initiative, and multiple performances at Big Ears Festival 2022. Ms. Negrón also continues to perform and compose for film. 

You can hear some samples of her music in the video linked below: