July 21, 2025
Five Questions for MICF Resident Composer Seda Balci
Seda Balci is one of eight Resident Composers selected to participate in the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival. MICF Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound will perform her composition Riffscape at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, at Columbia’s Missouri Theatre. The concert is free and open to the public. 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…
July 21, 2025
Five Questions for MICF Resident Composer Amy Brandon
Amy Brandon is one of eight Resident Composers selected to participate in the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival. MICF Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound will perform her composition Incipit at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, at Columbia’s Missouri Theatre. The concert is free and open to the public. JUNO-nominated composer Amy Brandon’s pieces have been described as “gut-wrenching and horrific” [Critipeg], “otherworldly, a clashing of bleakness with beauty” [Minor Seventh], and “arresting, riveting music, highly original and individual” [Simon Cummings, 5:4]. Recent works include a NextGen commission…
July 3, 2025
Mizzou International Composers Festival Spotlight: Distinguished Guest Composer Judd Greenstein
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Judd Greenstein as one of two Distinguished Guest Composers for the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival. The Festival, which takes place from Wednesday, July 23 through Saturday, July 26 on the campus of the University of Missouri and at the Missouri Theatre, will also welcome Distinguished Guest Composer Hilda Paredes. Greenstein will have private meetings with the Resident Composers, work with groups who will be performing his music at the Festival, and make…
July 3, 2025
Mizzou International Composers Festival Spotlight: Distinguished Guest Composer Hilda Paredes
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Hilda Paredes as one of two Distinguished Guest Composers for the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival. The Festival, which takes place from Wednesday, July 23 through Saturday, July 26 on the campus of the University of Missouri and at the Missouri Theatre, will also welcome Distinguished Guest Composer Judd Greenstein. Paredes will have private meetings with the Resident Composers, work with groups who will be performing her music at the Festival, and make…
July 3, 2025
World Premieres of Eight Musical Works by Internationally Acclaimed Composers to be Performed by Alarm Will Sound at the Mizzou International Composers Festival Concert on Saturday, July 26 at Missouri Theatre in Columbia
New musical works by eight internationally acclaimed composers from four countries will be performed publicly for the first time in concert at the Missouri Theatre in Columbia on Saturday, July 26 at 7:30 pm as part of the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF). Critically acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, conducted by artistic director Alan Pierson, will perform all eight compositions during this dynamic public concert presented by the Mizzou New Music Initiative. The concert will cap six days of musical workshops and…
May 5, 2025
Mizzou New Music Initiative to expand thanks to $4.6 million gift
A $4.6 million gift from Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield, Rex Sinquefield, and the Sinquefield CharitableFoundation will ensure University of Missouri students continue to redefine the sounds oftomorrow through the Mizzou New Music Initiative. The funding will expand opportunities for students and faculty, supercharging a program alreadyknown for fostering bold, original compositions and turning visionary ideas into reality. “My goal is to make Missouri a mecca for musical composition,” said Jeanne Sinquefield, amember of the UM Board of Curators and founder of the Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI). “The MNMI covers K-12, undergraduate,…
April 24, 2025
Oswald Huýnh (Mizzou Master of Music in Composition, 2022) named as a winner of the 2025-26 Rome Prize
The American Academy in Rome has named Oswald Huýnh (Mizzou Master of Music in Composition, 2022) as laureate of the Frederic A Juilliard | Walter Damrosch Rome Prize in Musical Composition. According to the organization, the Rome Prize is “a rigorous competition supporting innovative fellows in the arts, humanities, and sciences, offering artists and scholars the time, space setting, and colleagues to explore and create in the singular city of Rome.” Huýnh is one of 35 recipients who will reside at the Academy’s 11-acre grounds in the Eternal City for five to ten months,…
Jan. 30, 2025
Mizzou International Composers Festival Announces Resident Composers for 2025
The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) and Alarm Will Sound have selected eight Resident Composers to participate in the 2025 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF). Presented by the MNMI and the University of Missouri School of Music from Monday, July 21 through Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Columbia, the sixteenth annual MICF will feature world premieres of new works written by each of the selected composers. Listed with their birthplaces, they are: Amy Brandon (Prince Edward Island, Canada)Chris Thompson (Savannah, GA)Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei (Denton, TX)Geli Li (Guangzhou, China)|Matt Smith (San Diego, CA)Parker Callister (Ithaca, NY)Seda Balci (Eskişehir, Turkey)Robert Ge (Atlanta,…