Sep. 29, 2021
Mizzou New Music Ensemble opens 2021-22 season with live performance at Sinquefield Music Center on October 10, 2021
Members of the 2021-22 Mizzou New Music Ensemble with Artistic Director Yoshiaki Onishi (third from front) and Stefan Freund, Artistic Directoe of MNMI (fifth from front) For the first time since March, 2020, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will perform in front of a live audience! The concert is scheduled for 7:30 pm on Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021, and will take place on the University of Missouri Campus at the Sinquefield Music Center (SMC 132). The concert is free and open to the public. For those unable to attend in person, the concert will be livestreamed on the…
Sep. 13, 2021
Dean Minderman (1957-2021)
Dean Minderman performing at the Big Muddy Blues Festival in St. Louis, 2018 We at the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the MU School of Music are saddened to learn of Dean C. Minderman’s passing. Dean was the voice of this blog and our Twitter profile for the last 11 years, and as part of Slay & Associates’s team, worked tirelessly to promote MNMI’s activities. If you’ve ever been a visiting composer or performer at Mizzou, or if you’re a student or faculty composer who’s won an award or participated in an opportunity, Dean has written about you. If…
Aug. 17, 2021
Stefan Freund wins commission from Barlow Endowment
University of Missouri professor of composition and Mizzou New Music Initiative artistic director Stefan Freund has won a commission for 2021 from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition. Freund (pictured) was one of 9 composers selected from among 259 applications this year to the Endowment’s General and LDS commissioning programs, which will award grants totaling $60,000 to the winners. The Barlow Endowment was established in September 1983 through a gift from Milton A. and Gloria Barlow to Brigham Young University for the purpose of “engendering and supporting excellence in musical composition through the university and the BYU College…
Aug. 9, 2021
Mizzou composer, musicians featured in PBS special celebrating Missouri’s bicentennial
A new work written by a Mizzou composer and performed by MU faculty members will be featured in “Show Me the Music: A Celebration of the Missouri Bicentennial,” a television special that will air beginning this week on PBS affiliates in Missouri. “Waterways” was written on commission specifically for the bicentennial project by Stefan Freund (pictured), who is MNMI’s artistic director and professor of composition at Mizzou. The work then was performed and recorded in May at the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis by MU faculty members Alice Dade (flute), Eli Lara (cello), Julie Rosenfeld…
July 23, 2021
Composers Festival spotlight: Chen Yi
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Chen Yi as one of two distinguished guest composers for the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival. Chen (pictured) is a distinguished professor of composition at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition “Si Ji” (“Four Seasons”), she was born and raised in Guangzhou, China and is known as a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries. She holds a BA and MA in music composition from…
July 22, 2021
Composers Festival spotlight: David T. Little
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome David T. Little as one of the two distinguished guest composers for the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival. Called “one of the most imaginative young composers” by The New Yorker, he has been recognized particularly for his operas “Dog Days,” “JFK,” and “Vinkensport” (with librettos by Royce Vavrek), and “Soldier Songs,” which have been widely acclaimed, “prov[ing] beyond any doubt that opera has both a relevant present and a bright future,” according to the New York Times. Little (pictured) holds degrees from Susquehanna University (2001), University of Michigan (2002), and…
July 21, 2021
Composers Festival spotlight: Nina Shekhar
Resident composer Nina Shekhar is a first generation Indian American who grew up in Detroit and now lives in New Jersey, where she is pursuing her PhD in composition at Princeton University. She previously completed composition graduate studies at the University of Southern California and undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, earning dual degrees in composition and chemical engineering. Shekhar (pictured) has the unusual distinction of having three of her pieces programmed as part of the 2021 MICF. The new work she wrote as a resident composer, “Turn Your Feet Around,” will be performed by…
July 20, 2021
Composers Festival spotlight: ANTiCX
Founded in 2021, ANTiCX is an artist collective of composers and makers. The group’s name is an acronym of the first letters of the first names of its members. They are (pictured clockwise from upper left): Annika Socolofsky is a composer and avant-folk vocalist who is assistant professor of composition and artistic director of Pendulum New Music at the University of Colorado Boulder Nina Shekhar currently is pursuing her PhD in composition at Princeton University. She is a composer teaching artist fellow for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and is on faculty at Idyllwild Arts Academy…