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University of Missouri School of Music student Seda Balci has been accepted to participate in the Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival, scheduled for July 3-16, 2026. Mizzou New Music Initiative Associate Director Tiffany Skidmore will serve as one of the Festival’s faculty members.
The Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival is designed for composers looking to refine their craft, receive professional performances of their works, and immerse themselves in the rich musical culture of Vienna, Austria. Each selected composer will have their new work performed during the festival. Participants will also benefit from private composition lessons with Viennese and international composers, including Dr. Skidmore, as well as lectures and masterclasses on contemporary music and advanced theory.
Born in Turkey to a jazz-loving father and a mother fond of traditional folk songs, Balci grew up immersed in diverse musical worlds. She began studying piano at age 11 and later earned double degrees in piano and composition from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. After completing her master’s and doctorate in piano, she shifted focus to composition. As a pianist, she performed as a soloist with the Mimar Sinan and Anadolu University Symphony Orchestras. In 2023, she moved to the US to pursue composition at the University of Missouri. She was commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and won the 2024 Sinquefield Prize, composing a piece for choir and electronics. In 2025, she received a Sheldon Commission to write a work for clarinet quartet featuring members of the St. Louis Symphony. Her music blends European classical traditions with Turkish folk influences, often exploring themes of the universe, nature, and sound.
Tiffany M. Skidmore is an American composer and performer based in Columbia, Missouri, where she is currently Associate Director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative. She has held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, Virginia Tech, and the University at Buffalo (SUNY), where from 2023-2024, she held the Birge Cary Chair in Music Composition. Most recently, she was a Visiting Professor at McGill University, in residence at CIRMMT (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). She is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Co-Artistic Director of the Twin Cities-based 113 Composers Collective, an organization that produces the Twin Cities New Music Festival, as well as concerts and guest artist residencies throughout the world.
“I met Seda last summer when she was a Resident Composer at the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival and was really impressed by her work and unique compositional voice,” Dr. Skidmore said. “There wasn’t an opportunity for us to talk about her score or compositional process, so it feels very serendipitous that we’ll be working together during the VCCF.”
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