June 12, 2015
Music from 2014 MICF now on SoundCloud
Now that tickets are on sale for the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival, here’s a chance to whet your musical appetite with some sounds from the 2014 MICF. These works were written by 2014 resident composers Holly Harrison, Texu Kim, and Michael Schachter (pictured, from left) especially for the Festival’s resident ensemble Alarm Will Sound, and received their world premiere performances at the 2014 festival. To play the track, just click on the embedded SoundCloud player. The 2015 MICF takes place July 20 – 25 in Columbia. To get your tickets to hear this year’s exciting…
June 2, 2015
Tickets for 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival
go on sale Monday, June 8
New Muse Piano Duo Tickets for the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF) will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. CDT next Monday, June 8. Heralded as one of the premier contemporary music events in the Midwest, the MICF has been called “a vibrant inferno of creative energy” by the internationally syndicated radio program “Relevant Tones,” and praised for offering “kinetic excitement” by the hometown Columbia Daily Tribune. DRAX The 2015 MICF will take place from Monday, July 20 through Saturday, July 25 in Columbia. The grand finale of the week will feature the world premieres of…
May 28, 2015
José Martínez selected for LA Phil composers workshop
Mizzou student José Martínez is headed to California this week to take part in a workshop for young composers sponsored by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The Next on Grand: National Composers Intensive is a three-day program that lets selected American composition students create new works for the Los Angeles-based “experimental classical ensemble” wild Up, while also working side-by-side with esteemed composers such as Steven Mackey, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, Caroline Shaw, and Steve Reich. Martinez (pictured) is one of ten composers selected for this year’s intensive program, which will take place May 28 –…
May 6, 2015
“Herstory” website features original music from Mizzou composer Haley Myers
Senior composition major Haley Myers talks about creating the soundtrack for "Herstory" Haley Myers, a senior composition major at Mizzou, has written and performed original music for The Herstory: JAWS Oral History Project, a new website created by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. “Herstory,” which went online last week, documents the professional careers, work experiences and associational life of senior women journalists who have participated in the Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS), an organization of female journalists that grew out of a 1984 panel discussion at the Missouri School of Journalism. The site features…
May 1, 2015
A ‘behind-the-scenes” look at the Mizzou New Music Ensemble
In conjunction with their concert last Sunday, April 26 at Whitmore Recital Hall, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble staged a “Twitter takeover,” offering followers a behind-the-scenes look at their preparations for the show. You can see what happened in the slideshow below… [View the story “Mizzou New Music Ensemble with composer David Biedenbender” on Storify]…
April 29, 2015
Mizzou New Music Ensemble to perform new works
inspired by St. Louis Zoo in concert on Friday, May 8
The Living World at the St. Louis Zoo In the latest in an ongoing series of concerts featuring newly commissioned, site-specific works, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will perform at 2:00 p.m. Friday, May 8 in The Living World at the St. Louis Zoo. The concert is free and open to the public. The program will include three new compositions from University of Missouri students inspired by the Zoo and commissioned specifically for the occasion by the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. “Predators” is by Kaylene Cypret, a graduate student working on a master’s in composition and orchestral…
April 29, 2015
Tom McKenney featured in Columbia Daily Tribune, on KBIA
W. Thomas “Tom” McKenney, who has taught composition and music theory at Mizzou for 47 years and has served as co-artistic director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative since it began in 2010, is retiring from full-time teaching after the Spring 2015 semester. Although Professor McKenney (pictured) will still be around Columbia, teaching some classes, composing, and no doubt offering wise counsel to all who seek it (while being freed from those pesky meetings and administrative duties), it nevertheless seems very appropriate that the Columbia Daily Tribune paid tribute to him last week with an short feature about his…
April 10, 2015
$10 million donation kicks off campaign for new music building at Mizzou
Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield have given a $10 million gift to the University of Missouri to help fund the proposed new School of Music building. The gift, the largest ever in support of the arts at MU, was announced in a news conference on Friday April 10 at the Reynolds Alumni Center on the Mizzou campus. Through the generous gift, the Sinquefields will help begin the fundraising efforts for the new School of Music building, which will be located at the northeast corner of Hitt Street and University Avenue on the MU campus. The new School…