April 17, 2012
2012 C.O.M.P. winners in the news
The student composers who submitted winning entries in the 2012 Creating Original Music Project (C.O.M.P.) competition are making news throughout the state: The six winners from the St. Louis area were featured Monday in an item by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Sarah Bryan Miller on the Post‘s Culture Club blog. Gus Knobbe of Webster Groves High School, who won first place in the High School – Fine Art category, also was mentioned in the Post’s Suburban Journals and the Webster Groves edition of Patch.com. Meanwhile, the Ballwin/Ellisvile Patch.com site had an article about…
April 9, 2012
Mizzou New Music Ensemble to play final concert of the season Monday, April 16 at Whitmore Recital Hall
The Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) will play the final concert of their 2011-12 season at 8:00 p.m., Monday, April 16 in 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. Continuing the Ensemble’s practice of performing new works by composers associated with the University, the concert will feature world premieres of three pieces written by Mizzou students who are earning master’s degrees in composition. Grant Fonda’s SHARK! BLIMP! GERSHWIN! draws inspiration from the simplicity and joy…
April 5, 2012
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. As a reward for their work, they’ll get a chance to perform their winning compositions at the Creating Original Music Project Festival. The Festival will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 21 at the Fine Arts Building on…
March 9, 2012
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 a past winner of the Sinquefield Composition Prize, was profiled by the Tribune‘s Jill Renae Hicks in a story on February 19. Berg will be one of the resident composers at this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, to be held July…
Feb. 10, 2012
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 focusing on the future of music. “4C: Columbia Celebrates Contemporary Composers” will take place from Sunday, March 4 through Saturday, March 10. The week will feature concerts by four different ensembles, including the Columbia debut of the Grammy Award winning…
Jan. 31, 2012
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 will receive a $500 honorarium from MOCOP’s sponsor, the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. The three works chosen in the Open category are “Euphoria Overture” by Michael Blackwood, who lives in Florissant and teaches orchestra for the Rockwood School District; “This Is the Garden”…
Jan. 9, 2012
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 event’s three-year history. The University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative today announced the eight resident composers selected for the 2012 Festival, which will take place Monday, July 23 through Saturday, July 28 in Columbia. Chosen through…
Nov. 23, 2011
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 premieres by composers associated with Mizzou, plus works from modern masters Steven Stucky and John Adams. Adams, known for his pioneering minimalist composition “Shaker Loops” and the operas Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, is the composer of “Christian Zeal and Activity,” a…