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Danae Venson is one of eight Resident Composers selected to participate in the 2026 Mizzou International Composers Festival. MICF Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound will perform her composition shout! at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 25, at Columbia’s Missouri Theatre. The concert is free and open to the public.
Venson is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Houston, Texas. She has recently completed her Bachelor of Music degree with academic honors at The Juilliard School, studying with Dr. Amy Beth Kirsten and Valerie Coleman.
In 2020, after paying close attention to troubling events of racial violence, Danae decided to find a way to “speak without words.” She has been awarded National Sawdust’s Hildegard Commission and received opportunities to work with the Denyce Graves Foundation, MATA Festival, New York Youth Symphony, the Houston Ballet Academy, Castle of our Skins, and The Juilliard School.
We recently chatted with her via email.
What is your musical background? When and how did you begin composing?
I come from a musical family – more specifically, a father who was a Minister of Music. Because of who my father was, a large percentage of my artistic foundation was built through singing and playing piano in church. As I grew older, I started to pick up other instruments like the violin and the harp and played in my school’s orchestra and jazz band. My participation in three different worlds (jazz, classical, and gospel) early on allowed me the opportunity to cultivate a true curiosity and passion for music that remained constant across a handful of styles and practices. So, by the time 2020 rolled around, I knew music would be one of the only things to pull me through the grief and anger that the year inflicted on so many of us. Home from school and witnessing all the racially-motivated violence that was occurring in the United States, I had no choice but to be honest about my emotions, and words couldn’t effectively carry the weight of how I felt. To maintain the health of my truth, my identity, and my life, I started composing at the age of 17 during quarantine.
How did you hear about MICF?
I heard about MICF through research and a fateful visit to the American Composers Forum website!
Tell us about your piece that will be performed at MICF. What should we listen for?
My piece, shout! is a shift in color from the work I’ve made thus far. For starters, it invokes an African-American ritual that would be practiced in slavery, the “ring shout.” In honoring my ancestors and their spiritual commitments, I felt motivated to incorporate as much as I could of the ring shout energy into my writing; so, the rhythmic force that pushes the ritual forward is present in my piece. I would encourage everyone to listen for the central ring shout rhythm!
What does it mean for you to work with an ensemble like Alarm Will Sound?
Working with an ensemble like the Garmmy Award-winning Alarm Will Sound feels like an awesome opportunity! I’m definitely looking forward to hearing my piece, learning new things, and getting an experience that will allow me to grow as a composer.
What do you hope to learn from your MICF experience?
Something I’d love to learn from my experience at MICF is how to get rid of all the limits that I feel sometimes as a composer. This new piece of mine embraces a completely new energy and color than my other pieces. I want to know how that feels! I’m excited to learn more about what it means to be an unapologetically free composer.
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