Robert Morris to serve as guest composer for 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival; Chen Yi withdraws for medical reasons

Composer Chen Yi, who had been scheduled to be one of the distinguished guest composers later this month at the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival, has withdrawn from the festival due to medical reasons. In place of Chen, Robert Morris, composer and professor at the Eastman School of Music, has agreed to serve as a…

Composers Festival spotlight: Missouri Clarinet Quartet

The Missouri Clarinet Quartet will make their Mizzou International Composers Festival debut as a part of the "Mizzou New Music" concert on Friday, July 27 at the Missouri Theatre. Founded in 2017 under the guidance of assistant teaching professor Wesley Warnhoff,  the MCQ is committed "to community engagement and the expansion of the clarinet quartet…

Yoshi Onishi answers “5 Questions” from I Care If You Listen

The Mizzou New Music Initiative's new postdoctoral fellow Yoshiaki “Yoshi” Onishi is the subject of a "5 Questions" interview published last week by the new-music website I Care If You Listen. In the interview, Onishi (pictured) talks with ICIYL's Alexander Rothe about his compositional process and his ongoing project "Les Six Aspects du Néant" (“The…

Composers Festival spotlight: Viet Cuong

Resident composer Viet Cuong comes to the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival from Philadelphia, where he currently is studying in the Curtis Institute of Music's Artist Diploma program and finishing his PhD at Princeton University. Born in West Hills, CA and raised in Marietta, GA (near Atlanta), Cuong also holds an MFA from Princeton. He…

Composers Festival spotlight: Christine Burke

Like many contemporary composers, Christine Burke does more than write music. Burke, who's one of the seven resident composers for the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival, also is a clarinetist and bandleader of the Christine Burke Ensemble, giving her a ready outlet for new musical ideas. Burke is a fellow Midwesterner, coming to the MICF…

MICF on TV

The 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival now has a 30-second commercial running online, on central Missouri’s PBS affiliate, and on local and cable news in Columbia. The video was produced by Dale H. Lloyd working under the direction of Mizzou New Music Initiative managing director Jacob Gotlib. You can see the spot in the embedded…

Erin Hoerchler wins ASCAP Foundation scholarship

Mizzou alum Erin Marie Hoerchler is the winner of the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Frederick Loewe Scholarship. Hoerchler (pictured), who earned her bachelor of music degree in composition from Mizzou in 2017, is a composer, vocalist, and musical director with a particular interest in musical theater. She will begin work in September on a master of…

Composers Festival spotlight: Oren Boneh

Originally from Denver, CO, resident composer Oren Boneh comes to the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival via California, where he currently is working on a PhD in composition at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Denver, and subsequently has studied at McGill University in Montreal, the Royal Danish…