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…
June 17, 2025
Mizzou New Music Ensemble Completes 12-Day South American Tour Featuring Concerts and Readings of Local Composers’ Works
The Mizzou New Music Ensemble has completed a two-week South American tour that featured four public concert performances of eight local composers’ works as well as readings of local students’ works and conducting/composition classes in Lima, Peru, and Medellín and Bogotá, Colombia. This was the MNME’s second South American tour; the first was held in 2023. The seven-piece ensemble, led by conductor and director Dr. Stefan Freund, performed on May 15 at Lima’s Universidad Nacional de Música and on May 16 at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, with readings of Lima students’ works on…
May 27, 2025
Dr. Tiffany M. Skidmore joins MNMI as Managing Director
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to announce that Dr. Tiffany M. Skidmore will be joining our team as Managing Director. Dr. Skidmore is an American composer and performer based in Columbia, Missouri. She has held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, Virginia Tech, and the University at Buffalo (SUNY), where, from 2023-2024, she held the Birge Cary Chair in Music Composition. Most recently, she was a Visiting Professor at McGill University, in residence at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). She is Co-Founder, Executive…
May 19, 2025
MOCOP honorable mention Violet Burney featured in the Ladue News
Violet Burney, whose composition “Sleep” earned an honorable mention in the Mizzou New Music Initiative‘s 2025 Missouri Composers Project Choral Open Age category, was featured in the May 16 issue of the Ladue News. The piece was performed as part of a concert featuring the Columbia Civic Orchestra and Premiere Vocal Artists on April 13 at Broadway Christian Church.