Sep. 17, 2019
Mizzou International Composers Festival set for July 27 – August 1, 2020; applications for resident composers now open
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is accepting applications for resident composers to take part in the 11th annual Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF), which will take place starting Monday, July 27 through Saturday, August 1, 2020 on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia. Chen Yi and David T. Little (pictured) will serve as the festival’s two distinguished guest composers for 2020, teaching and consulting with the resident composers and ensembles. Little also will write a new commissioned work specifically for the festival. The week-long MICF features concerts of music from contemporary composers, along with…
Sep. 10, 2019
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra to read works by Mizzou composers
Hans Bridger Heruth, Ethan Forte, and Daniel Vega
From left: Heruth, Forte, Vega Three University of Missouri student composers will have their works played by musicians with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra this year as part of a joint educational venture between the orchestra and the Mizzou New Music Initiative. Student composers Hans Bridger Heruth, Ethan Forte, and Daniel Vega (pictured) were selected by SLSO Resident Conductor Gemma New to write new works for a 40-piece chamber orchestra drawn from the musicians of the St. Louis Symphony. The three works will be read, played, and critiqued in a private session on Tuesday, October 1 in St. Louis.
Sep. 5, 2019
MADSM 2019 Collegiate Composition Competition
looking for new works for chamber ensemble
The Missouri Association of Departments and Schools of Music (MADSM) and the Mizzou New Music Initiative are looking for new chamber music written by college students in Missouri for the second annual MADSM Collegiate Composition Competition. Founded in 2018 to encourage the creation of original chamber music that can be played by high-school level musicians, the MADSM Collegiate Composition Competition is open to all students currently enrolled in any MADSM member institution, with separate categories for undergraduate and graduate students. Composers are asked to write a new work from five to seven minutes in length for a group of…
July 29, 2019
A look back at the 2019 Mizzou International Composers Festival
July 21, 2019
Composers Festival spotlight: Donnacha Dennehy
Donnacha Dennehy returns to the Mizzou International Composers Festival in 2019 as a distinguished guest composer, having previously served in the same capacity in 2012, and thereby making MICF history by becoming the only composer to play that role twice. Considered one of Ireland’s top living composers, Dennehy (pictured) is a founder of the new music group Crash Ensemble and an associate professor of music at Princeton University. His music has been featured at major festivals and venues around the world, including the Edinburgh International Festival; Carnegie Hall; the Tanglewood Festival; the Kennedy Center; The Barbican, Wigmore…
July 21, 2019
2019 MICF featured in Columbia Daily Tribune
On the Sunday just before the start of this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival, the Columbia Daily Tribune published four articles by features editor Aarik Danielsen telling readers about the fest. You can read them all at the Tribune’s website by clicking on the links below: * Meet this year’s composers * Come Together: MU professors lead Khemia Ensemble to musical chemistry * Eyes and ears open: Composer converts moments of awareness into a career, about resident composer Nicole Murphy * Hear here: Composer tunes her work to a world of sound, about resident composer…
July 20, 2019
Composers Festival spotlight: Charles Halka
Resident composer Charles Halka comes to the 2019 Mizzou International Composers Festival having already done a good deal of world traveling in his composing and teaching career. Originally from Tulsa, OK, Halka (pictured) currently is an assistant professor of composition and theory at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. He earned a doctor of musical arts degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, TX, and holds degrees in both piano and composition from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD. Overseas, he also has studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory…
July 19, 2019
Composers Festival spotlight: Amy Beth Kirsten
Amy Beth Kirsten occupies a unique place in Mizzou International Composers Festival history, returning in 2019 as a distinguished guest composer after having been one of the eight resident composers at the very first MICF (then called the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival) in 2010. Kirsten is the only composer to take part in the festival in both capacities, and to celebrate her return, the 2019 MICF will feature the world premiere of excerpts from a major new composition of hers. Selected parts of “Jacob in Chains,” an evening-length, music-driven theatrical work commissioned by Alarm Will Sound and…