July 17, 2018
Composers Festival spotlight: Douglas Osmun
The University of Missouri’s representative among this year’s group of resident composers at the Mizzou International Composers Festival is Douglas Osmun, who recently earned his M.M. in composition from Mizzou. Originally from Zeeland, MI, Osmun previously received his bachelor’s degree in music from Western Michigan University, where he was named a Beulah and Harold McKee Scholar. He is a composer of both acoustic and electronic music who describes his work as “deeply concerned with elements of sound embodiment, spatialization, and perception.” Osmun’s new work for the MICF is called “in effigies,” and it will be performed along with…
July 16, 2018
Composers Festival spotlight: Amanda Feery
If there were a prize for “longest distance traveled to take part in the Mizzou International Composers Festival,” resident composer Amanda Feery would be the winner for 2018, coming to Columbia all the way from Dublin, Ireland. Originally from County Offaly in Ireland, Feery recently moved back to her home country after completing her PhD in composition here in the USA at Princeton University. She previously earned a B.A. in music and an M.Phil in music and media technologies from Trinity College Dublin. For the MICF, Feery has composed a new work titled “This is the House…
July 16, 2018
Robert Morris to serve as guest composer for 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival; Chen Yi withdraws for medical reasons
Composer Chen Yi, who had been scheduled to be one of the distinguished guest composers later this month at the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival, has withdrawn from the festival due to medical reasons. In place of Chen, Robert Morris, composer and professor at the Eastman School of Music, has agreed to serve as a guest composer for the 2018 MICF. “We regret that Chen Yi is unable to participate in this year’s festival. She recently had surgery and though a full recovery is expected, it’s taking longer than originally anticipated,” said Stefan Freund, professor of…
July 16, 2018
Composers Festival spotlight: Missouri Clarinet Quartet
The Missouri Clarinet Quartet will make their Mizzou International Composers Festival debut as a part of the “Mizzou New Music” concert on Friday, July 27 at the Missouri Theatre. Founded in 2017 under the guidance of assistant teaching professor Wesley Warnhoff, the MCQ is committed “to community engagement and the expansion of the clarinet quartet repertoire.” The members of the quartet include Victoria Hargrove, a Mizzou alum now entering the DMA program at Michigan State University; music educator and Mizzou alum Erin Rhomberg; Andrew Mahonen, a Mizzou graduate student and teaching assistant; and Austin Wright, a graduate student…
July 12, 2018
Composers Festival spotlight: Viet Cuong
Resident composer Viet Cuong comes to the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival from Philadelphia, where he currently is studying in the Curtis Institute of Music‘s Artist Diploma program and finishing his PhD at Princeton University. Born in West Hills, CA and raised in Marietta, GA (near Atlanta), Cuong also holds an MFA from Princeton. He earned his bachelor and master of music degrees from the Peabody Institute at The Johns Hopkins University, where he won the Peabody Alumni Award for being valedictorian and the Gustav Klemm Award for excellence in composition. The piece Cuong has…
July 11, 2018
Composers Festival spotlight: Christine Burke
Like many contemporary composers, Christine Burke does more than write music. Burke, who’s one of the seven resident composers for the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival, also is a clarinetist and bandleader of the Christine Burke Ensemble, giving her a ready outlet for new musical ideas. Burke is a fellow Midwesterner, coming to the MICF from Iowa City, IA, where she earned her master’s degree from the University of Iowa and still resides. Previously, the Indiana native in 2014 got her bachelor of music degree in clarinet performance from Duquesne University. While in Pittsburgh, she was actively…
July 11, 2018
MICF on TV
The 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival now has a 30-second commercial running online, on central Missouri’s PBS affiliate, and on local and cable news in Columbia. The video was produced by Dale H. Lloyd working under the direction of Mizzou New Music Initiative managing director Jacob Gotlib. You can see the spot in the embedded window below.
July 10, 2018
Composers Festival spotlight: Oren Boneh
Originally from Denver, CO, resident composer Oren Boneh comes to the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival via California, where he currently is working on a PhD in composition at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Denver, and subsequently has studied at McGill University in Montreal, the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and, with support from a Fulbright fellowship, in Germany at the Dresden Music Cognition Lab. For the MICF, Boneh has written a new work for Alarm Will Sound called “Unseen Beneath the Ice,” which will…