July 24, 2017
Composers Festival spotlight: Georg Friedrich Haas
Georg Friedrich Haas, one of the two distinguished guest composers at the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival, is known and respected internationally as one of the major European composers of his generation. Considered to be a leading exponent of “spectral music” and sometimes compared to György Ligeti for his use of microtonality, Haas has lectured and taught courses on the subject, but also has said he’s uncomfortable being pigeonholed, noting simply that, “I am a composer, not a microtonalist.” As a distinguished guest composer for the MICF, Haas (pictured) will work with the eight resident composers…
July 23, 2017
MICF in the news
With the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival set to start on Monday, July 24, the MICF has been in the news. The website I Care If You Listen, which has an international following among composers, musicians, and new music enthusiasts, offered extensive coverage of the festival with “5 Questions for Stefan Freund,” which included several photos and a SoundCloud playlist of the 2016 MICF’s eight world premieres. Freund – the artistic director of the MICF and the Mizzou New Music Initiative, professor of composition at Mizzou, and cellist for Alarm Will Sound – used the opportunity…
July 22, 2017
Composers Festival spotlight: Christopher Mayo
A native of Toronto, Christopher Mayo is the first Canadian to be a resident composer for the Mizzou International Composer Festival. A composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic music, Mayo (pictured) received his bachelor of music degree with honors at the University of Toronto, where he was awarded the Glenn Gould Composition Prize and the William Erving Fairclough Scholarship. He relocated to London in 2003 to study at the Royal College of Music, where he earned a master of music in 2004 and a Ph.D in composition in 2011. His time there resulted in…
July 21, 2017
Composers Festival spotlight: Amadeus Regucera
Based in the San Francisco Bay area, Amadeus Regucera is (along with Clare Glackin and Selim Göncü) one of three resident composers at this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival with a West Coast connection. A native Californian, he earned his B.A. in music in 2006 from the University of California, San Diego and last year completed work on his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. Regucera also has considerable experience in concert production, having served as production director of UC Berkeley’s Eco Ensemble, production and operations manager of the University of California,…
July 21, 2017
MICF on TV
The 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival has two different video spots running online, on central Missouri’s PBS affiliate, and on local and cable news in Columbia. The videos were produced by Michael Boles and Nicholas Barwick of Mizzou’s Academic Support Center and by Dale H. Lloyd, working under the direction of Mizzou New Music Initiative managing director Jacob Gotlib. You can see both spots in the embedded windows below.
July 20, 2017
Composers Festival spotlight: Dan Visconti
Dan ViscontiDan Visconti, one of the two distinguished guest composers at the 2017 Mizzou International Composers Festival, is known both for his music and for his work as a speaker, writer, and activist seeking “to address social issues through music by re-imagining the arts as a form of cultural and civic service.” Visconti’s biography describes his compositions as “rooted in the improvisational energy and maverick spirit of rock, folk music, and other vernacular performance traditions,” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer has characterized his work as “both mature and youthful, bristling with exhilarating musical ideas and a powerfully crafted…
July 19, 2017
Robert Sirota to discuss “Three Nocturnes” in pre-concert talk on Thursday, July 27
Composer Robert Sirota will discuss his new work “Three Nocturnes” in a pre-concert talk before Alarm Will Sound’s world premiere performance of it for the Mizzou International Composers Festival on Thursday, July 27 at the Missouri Theatre. Sirota’s talk will begin at 7:00 p.m., and the concert starts at 7:30 p.m. Sirota (pictured) will be joined by artist Simon Dinnerstein, whose drawings “Night,” “Night Scene I,” and “Purple Haze” provided inspiration for “Three Nocturnes”; and Alex Barker, director of Mizzou’s Museum of Art & Archaeology, where the exhibition “The Lasting World – Simon Dinnerstein and the…
July 19, 2017
Composers Festival spotlight: Eli Lara
Cellist Eli Lara will make her Mizzou International Composers Festival debut this year, performing as part of the “Mizzou New Music” concert on Friday, November 28 at the Missouri Theatre. Lara (pictured) joined the Mizzou faculty last fall as assistant professor of cello and the newest member of the Esterhazy Quartet. For the MICF, she’ll perform a program of works dedicated to iconic Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, including “Trois Strophes sur le Nom de Sacher” by Henri Dutilleux, and several pieces composed as part of the “Mystery Variations” project celebrating the 50th birthday…