The Missouri Composers Project (MOCOP) is looking for new orchestral and choral music written by residents of Missouri as well as neighboring states.

Now in its eleventh year, MOCOP is a collaborative effort involving the Mizzou New Music Initiative, the Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO), the Columbia Chamber Choir, and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation to bring attention to new large ensemble works written in the state of Missouri in its high school and open categories. MOCOP now offers an opportunity for undergraduates studying at universities in the neighboring states of Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Nebraska.  By identifying composers and providing opportunities for the performance of their work, MOCOP showcases emerging talent from Missouri and the Midwest, and shares it with the world.

Each year recently composed orchestral and choral works are selected through a competitive, blind judging process to be professionally performed and recorded by the CCO and Chamber Choir at a concert in Columbia, Missouri. Each of the composers of the selected works will be awarded a $500 honorarium.

Rehearsal: 2022 MOCOP Concert (photo credit: Allison Davis)

MOCOP’s expanded 2023 competition has six categories:

• Open Orchestral (up to 10 minutes in duration)
• Open Choral (up to 8 minutes in duration)
• High School Orchestral (up to 10 minutes in duration)
• High School Choral (up to 8 minutes in duration)
• Undergraduate Orchestral (up to 10 minutes in duration)
• Undergraduate Choral (up to 8 minutes in duration

The open categories include any composer, of any age, who is either a resident of Missouri or whose submitted work was written while the composer was living in Missouri. The high school categories include any composer enrolled in grades 9-12 in a Missouri high school. The undergraduate categories include current undergraduate students studying in universities from any of the seven neighboring states.

The CCO and Columbia Chamber Choir will perform selected works in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 16, 2023 at First Baptist Church, 605 Elm St, in Columbia.

Here are links to last year’s performance:

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mizzou-new-music-initiative/sets/mocop-the-missouri-composers-project
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CkZPuJZ9u8

Composers who wish to submit their work to MOCOP can find details on eligibility and instrumentation – plus complete application materials online – at https://zealous.co/mnmi/opportunity/Missouri-Composers-Project/. Applications open on Friday, October 28, 2022 and close on December 9, 2022.

The Columbia Civic Orchestra is a volunteer group located in Columbia, Missouri, dedicated to providing enjoyment for its members and audiences with the presentation and preservation of high-quality symphonic music.

The Columbia Chamber Choir is an ensemble of the Chorale Arts Alliance of Missouri, which works to promote choral music of the highest artistic quality and to stimulate a greater community understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of choral music by presenting programs appealing to a wide cross-section of Missouri residents and visitors.

We encourage High School applicants to be in touch with our distance learning instructor, Mahbod Shirvani, msgtd@missouri.edu.