Creating Original Music Project (C.O.M.P.) rewards student composers from across Missouri

From “Windswept Dreams” to “Madness,” the winning entries in the seventh annual Creating Original Music Project (C.O.M.P.) competition demonstrate the passion and commitment of the young composers who brought them to life. For 2012, a total of 22 elementary, middle school and high school students from across Missouri have been awarded prizes in the competition.…

MNMI in the media: Stephanie Berg, Donovan Tousignant, eighth blackbird

The Mizzou New Music Initiative continues to make news on campus, in Columbia, and throughout the state of Missouri and the world of music. Most recently, two young composers associated with the MNMI were featured in the Columbia Daily Tribune. Stephanie Berg, a graduate student who's a member of the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and…

Columbia celebrates contemporary composers with four visionary events in March

For the past two years, the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival has brought visionary composers and musicians to Columbia in July for a week of concerts and workshops. Now the Mizzou New Music Initiative, will team up in March with the Columbia Civic Orchestra and Odyssey Chamber Music Series to present another week of performances…

Missouri Composers Orchestra Project selects four winning new works

The Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO) and the Mizzou New Music Initiative have announced the selection of four orchestral compositions written by Missouri residents to be performed by the CCO at a concert in March. The works were chosen in a statewide competition conducted under the auspices of the Missouri Composers Orchestra Project (MOCOP). The winners…

Mizzou New Music Summer Festival’s resident composers will bring diversity to 2012 event

From a London-based composer pursuing a doctorate at the Royal Academy of Music, to a Greek studying music in upstate New York, to a Kansas City native working towards her Master’s degree at Mizzou, the resident composers selected for this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival are perhaps the most diverse group yet in the…

Mizzou New Music Ensemble to perform three world premieres Monday, December 5 at Whitmore Recital Hall

The Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) will continue its 2011-12 season with a concert at 8:00 p.m., December 5 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the University of Missouri campus. Admission to the concert is free for Mizzou students, $5 suggested donation for the general public. The concert will feature three world…

Stephanie Berg wins statewide composition competition

University of Missouri graduate student Stephanie Berg (pictured) has won this year’s award in the “Young Artist” category of the Missouri State Division of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) composition competition. Berg, who is pursuing a Master’s degree in clarinet performance and composition at Mizzou, was recognized for her piece "Of Air Sweet and Water…

Kirsten, Podgursky win commissions from Harvard’s Fromm Foundation

Congratulations to Amy Beth Kirsten and Jeremy Podgursky, both resident composers at the inaugural Mizzou New Music Summer Festival in 2010, for winning $10,000 commissions this year from Harvard University's Fromm Music Foundation. The Fromm Music Foundation has been located at Harvard since 1972, and has commissioned more than 300 new compositions and their performances, as…