The 2024 Mizzou International Composers Festival, held July 22-27 at the University of Missouri and various locations in Columbia, concluded with a concert at the Missouri Theatre. It featured new works by eight MICF Resident Composers, performed by Ensemble-in-Residence Alarm Will Sound.
This year’s Resident Composers are Lukáš Janata, Davor Vincze, Yingting Liu, Lila Meretzky, Benjamin Scheuer, ess whiteley, Mahbod Shirvani, and Claire Hu.
The Festival also included a concert in which Alarm Will Sound performed pieces by Distinguished Guest Composers Mary Kouyoumdjian (Paper Pianos, a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music) and George Lewis (The Deformation of Mastery and Arcades). Works by Andrew Norman (Try) and Mizzou New Music Initiative Artistic Director Stefan Freund (the world premiere of Instrumentation Variations, a piece celebrating the 15th annual MICF) were also performed.
Throughout the week, Kouyoumdjian and Lewis worked closely with the Resident Composers, giving private lessons and workshops. They also worked with Alarm Will Sound and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble in rehearsals and performances of their music and spoke about their music onstage during the concert.
Other Festival events included a concert by the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and Mizzou faculty, held in the Sinquefield Music Center’s Sheryl Crow Hall. It featured works by the two Guest Composers as well as music by Shanyse Strickland, Lila Meretzky, and Utku Asoroglu.
Another concert, co-produced by Columbia’s Dismal Niche and Landlocked Opera, included electro-acoustic harp improvisations by Zeena Parkins and the world premiere of Felix Jarrar’s opera Pompadour Porcelain.
“It was delightful to be able to work with Distinguished Guest Composers Mary Kouyoumdjian and George Lewis as well as the eight Resident Composers,” Freund said. “There was fabulous camaraderie and wonderful exchange of ideas amongst the composers and with Alarm Will Sound throughout the week, which I believe contributed to incredibly expressive and intentional performances of their works.”
The works premiered at the Resident Composers’ concert were Janata’s GRAAL, Vincze’s Ashes, Liu’s Kill a Cow!, Meretzky’s Dinner, Scheuer’s Trittbrettfahrer, whiteley’s Machine Spectre, Shirvani’s Sounds for Nothing, and Hu’s the growing pull of your softening hands.
Each of the composers spoke about their pieces or things they learned at the Festival.
“My experience is that, in order to be able to develop a piece, you have to collaborate with musicians and use their very special abilities and find ways to include them,” Scheuer said.
“And I think this week has been the perfect example how collaboration can work and how some things can happen that cannot be invented at the desk. And I think that’s a thing that concerns your whole life, not only composition.”
“I’m actually really pleasantly surprised by how incredibly warm and friendly these people are,” Vincze said, referring to Alarm Will Sound. “And at the same time, being professional and so tight together; that’s just, like, inviting and friendly. And that’s, I think, a key for any collaboration.”
Next year’s MICF is scheduled for July 21-26. The Distinguished Guest Composers will be Hilda Parades and Judd Greenstein.