July 12, 2024
MICF Resident Composer Spotlight: Mahbod Shirvani
Mahbod Shirvani is an Iranian electroacoustic composer and tar player based in the United States. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Persian music performance, studying under Darioush Talaei, Siamak Aghaei, Hossein Alizadeh, and Azin Movahed at the University of Tehran. Mahbod Shirvani Shirvani has participated in international master classes and lessons with renowned composers such as Ken Ueno, Nina C. Young, Chaya Czernowin, Katharina Rosenberger, Marco Stroppa, Joachim Heintz, and Fanis Gioles. Throughout his career, Shirvani has delivered a number of performances as both a performer and composer, including roles as a theater and film composer in Iran. He…
July 12, 2024
MICF Resident Composer Spotlight: ess whiteley
ess whiteley is a San Diego-based composer, multimedia artist, and performer working primarily with electronics and intermedia. They are interested in cyborg consciousness, computer hallucinations, haunted technologies, ecology, and more-than-human worlds in the context of virtually entangled, post-internet life and the Chthulucene. whiteley has had works performed at the MATA Festival (NYC), Int-Act Festival (Bangkok, Thailand), Dublin Music Current Festival (Dublin, Ireland), WOCMAT (Hsinchu, Thailand), and the MANTIS Festival (Manchester, UK), among others. They were the winner of the Riot Ensemble CFS (Liverpool, UK) and Honorary Mention Award recipient at the MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival…
July 12, 2024
MICF Resident Composer Spotlight: Lukáš Janata
Lukáš Janata is a Czech San Francisco-based artist, composer, educator, performer, and organizer whose work asks an important question: how can creativity inspire empathy? His recent endeavors include board directorship at the Resonance Project, a nonprofit focusing on music as a conflict transformation through neuroscience. He co-organized a San Francisco Ukraine-benefit, Concert of Compassion, uniting national American and Ukrainian artists on one stage. Lukáš Janata Janata also co-curated SUMU in Helsinki, supported by the EU Commission, and regularly co-hosts the international empathy-provoking new-music festival, Echoes, in Prague. He instructs at the Walden School and the…
June 28, 2024
Mizzou International Composers Festival Spotlight: Distinguished Guest Composer Mary Kouyoumdjian
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Kouyoumdjian as one of two Distinguished Guest Composers for the 2024 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF). The Festival, which takes place from Monday, July 22 through Saturday, July 27 on the campus of the University of Missouri and at select Columbia locations, will also welcome Distinguished Guest Composer George Lewis. Kouyoumdjian, who returns to the Festival after attending as a Resident Composer in 2016, will have private meetings with the current Resident Composers, work with…
June 28, 2024
Mizzou International Composers Festival Spotlight: Distinguished Guest Composer George Lewis
The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome George Lewis as one of two Distinguished Guest Composers for the 2024 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF). The Festival, which takes place from Monday, July 22 through Saturday, July 27 on the campus of the University of Missouri and at select Columbia locations, will also welcome Distinguished Guest Composer Mary Kouyoumdjian. Lewis will have private meetings with the Resident Composers, work with groups who will be performing his music at the Festival, and make a public presentation about his…
June 21, 2024
MIZZOU NEW MUSIC INITIATIVE READIES 2024 MIZZOU INTERNATIONAL COMPOSERS FESTIVAL
The 2024 edition of the Mizzou International Composers Festival is set to take place from July 22-27 at the University of Missouri and select Columbia locations. Presented by the Mizzou New Music Initiative, the festival includes several public concerts, world premiere performances, appearances by Distinguished Guest Composers George Lewis and Mary Kouyoumdjian, and a concert in which acclaimed new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound will perform works by eight Resident Composers invited to the festival. Here is the 2024 MICF schedule:…
May 14, 2024
2024 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Utku Asuroglu, University of Missouri School of Music Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Composition
University of Missouri School of Music Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Composition Utku Asuroglu has been appointed as a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition. The appointments were announced on April 11 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Asuroglu is among 188 new Guggenheim Fellows whose work encompasses 52 disciplines and artistic fields. They range in age from 28 to 89 and represent 84 academic institutions, 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces. The fellows were selected via a rigorous peer review process from nearly 3000 applicants. Utku Asuroglu According to a…
April 23, 2024
Mizzou music students will have their works performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
At 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 30, three University of Missouri School of Music students will have their compositions performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at the Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis. Seda Balci, Giovanni Porfirio, and Mahbod Shrivani were selected to participate in an annual composer’s workshop which is a collaboration between the SLSO and the Mizzou New Music Initiative. The program is funded by the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. The April 30 performance is the culmination of a process that began last fall in which composers’ early drafts were critiqued by conductor…