March 12, 2018

Mizzou New Music Initiative seeks high school students for Missouri Summer Composition Institute to be held June 24 – 30 at the University of Missouri

The Mizzou New Music Initiative is looking for Missouri high school students interested in music composition to attend the 2018 Missouri Summer Composition Institute, which will be held from Sunday, June 24 through Saturday, June 30 on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia. Known informally as “COMP Camp,” after MNMI’s annual Creating Original Music Project contest for student composers, the Institute is open to students entering grades 9-12 and entering college freshman. The week-long program offers young composers from across the state the opportunity to receive composition lessons from MU faculty, learn from and interact with other creative…

Feb. 27, 2018

Khemia Ensemble visiting Mizzou for residency, concert on Tuesday, March 6

The new music group Khemia Ensemble will visit Columbia next week for a residency that will include a concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 6 at Whitmore Recital Hall. Admission to the performance is free and open to the public. With eight instrumentalists, two resident composers, and a visual artist, Khemia Ensemble (pictured) will present a concert program including works by the group’s founders Carolina Heredia and Bret Bohman, plus a new piece by Mizzou’s Dustin Dunn and music by Andy Akiho, Marcos Balter, Luciano Berio, Pierre Jalbert, and Harold Meltzer. While they’re on campus, the…

Feb. 23, 2018

Columbia Civic Orchestra, Columbia Chamber Choir to perform works by Missouri Composers Project winners in concert on Sunday, March 11

The Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO) and the Columbia Chamber Choir will perform the winning works from the 2018 Missouri Composers Project (MOCOP) competition in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 11 at First Baptist Church, 1112 East Broadway in Columbia. Admission to the concert is free and open to the public. Two of the winning works from the MOCOP competition are for orchestra, and two are for chorus. “Antrios,” the winner in the “orchestral – open” category, is by Aaron Mencher, a junior composition major and Sinquefield Scholar at Mizzou and the winner of…

Feb. 19, 2018

James Mobberley coming to Mizzou for residency next week

The Mizzou New Music Initiative will welcome composer and educator James Mobberley to the Mizzou campus for a residency next week. Mobberly (pictured) currently is a distinguished professor emeritus and adjunct professor at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, having retired as a full-time faculty member there in 2016. He’ll be in Columbia next Monday, February 26 and Tuesday, February 27 for a residency that will include a presentation on his music to a seminar of composition students, giving private lessons, and coaching the Mizzou New Music Ensemble, who will play his…

Feb. 8, 2018

Kuang-Hao Huang to visit Mizzou for residency, concerts on February 24 & 25

Pianist Kuang-Hao Huang is coming to Mizzou later this month for a four-day residency that will include public performances on Saturday, February 24 and Sunday, February 25. Huang (pictured) will perform with Mizzou faculty mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley in a concert at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 24, presenting works by Alban Berg, Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, Hanns Eisler, and Olivier Messiaen. Then at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 25, Huang will accompany Mizzou students singing and performing in an all-Messiaen concert of chamber music. Both performances will take place in Whitmore Recital Hall on the Mizzou campus. Admission…

Feb. 5, 2018

Mizzou New Music Ensemble performing works by Mobberley, Chen, Mincek, and Bohman on Monday, February 26 at Whitmore Recital Hall

The Mizzou New Music Ensemble’s first concert of 2018 will feature works by three guest composers who will be visiting the University of Missouri campus this year, plus a piece by a new faculty composer. The Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday, February 26 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the Mizzou campus. Admission is $5 for the general public, free for Mizzou faculty, students and staff with ID. Composer James Mobberley will coach the Ensemble and be present for the performance of his piece “Toccatas and Interludes” as part of a two-day residency at Mizzou.

Jan. 18, 2018

Missouri Composers Project selects four works for Columbia Civic Orchestra concert on Sunday, March 11

The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) has announced the selection of four winners in the 2018 Missouri Composers Project (MOCOP) competition. Now in its seventh year, MOCOP is a collaborative effort involving MNMI, the Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO), the Columbia Chamber Choir, and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. Composers from all over Missouri are invited each year to submit orchestral and choral works for potential performance, with winners selected in two age categories, “open” and “high school.” All four winners of the 2018 competition will receive a $500 honorarium from the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, and the CCO…

Jan. 9, 2018

Mikkel Christensen wins grand prize in ShoutHouse call for scores

Mizzou’s Mikkel Christensen has won the grand prize in a worldwide open call for scores from the ensemble ShoutHouse in New York City. Christensen (pictured) is in his first year of work toward a master’s degree in composition at Mizzou, studying with Stefan Freund. A native of Lockhart, TX, he earned his undergraduate degree in music and technology at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. Formed in 2012, ShoutHouse is a 14-member chamber orchestra of classical, hip-hop, and jazz musicians that describes their style as combining “the freedom and lyricism of jazz, the poetry of hip-hop, and…