July 18, 2012
Summer Festival Spotlight: Patrick Harlin
Resident composer Patrick Harlin comes to the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival from Ann Arbor, where he currently is working toward a doctoral degree in music composition from the University of Michigan. Born in Salt Lake City and raised in Seattle, Harlin (pictured) has been composing and playing piano since age 8. He earned his undergraduate degree at Western Washington University, where he received the Ford Hill Piano Scholarship, the Western Washington Piano Department scholarship, and many other awards. Harlin then moved to Ann Arbor to study for his Master’s degree, which he completed last year. Though…
July 18, 2012
Summer Festival Spotlight: Brian Ciach
A skilled pianist as well as a composer, Brian Ciach has created a wide variety of original music, from solo piano pieces to orchestral works to electronic music. As one of the resident composers for the 2102 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, Ciach (pronounced “SIGH-ack”) has written a new piece for Alarm Will Sound called The Einstein Slide. Inspired by a slice of Albert Einstein’s brain displayed in the Mütter Museum in Ciach’s home town of Philadelphia, the new work is puckishly termed “an appendix” to Collective Uncommon: Seven Orchestral Studies on Medical Oddities, which Ciach…
July 17, 2012
Summer Festival Spotlight: Anne-Carolyn Bird
The guest artist at this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival will be the talented soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird. Bird (pictured) will perform with Alarm Will Sound as part of the concert on Thursday, July 26, helping to bring to life the first part of Donnacha Dennehy’s new work-in-progress, The Hunger. Known primarily as an operatic singer, Bird got her undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia, then earned a Masters Degree cum laude from New England Conservatory, where she was a student of acclaimed mezzo-soprano D’Anna Fortunato. She has been a recipient of grants and awards from many…
July 17, 2012
Patrick Clark on the YES Academy Concerts: 11 July 2012–Composers; Duhok, Iraq
Assuming the reaction of an audience is a barometer of the success of a concert, the closing concerts for the YES Academy 2012 in Duhok hit their intended marks quite well. As the inaugural composition teacher for the Academy I had a vested interest in the concert of works by the student composers and so it will be my main focus here. One might have done well to bring earplugs to this concert, but not because the music was so loud. Rather because the applause was overwhelming. Of course the whistles of support by students are the most deadly of…
July 16, 2012
Mizzou New Music Summer Festival to include free events
In addition to the ticketed concerts at the Missouri Theatre, the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival includes a number of events that are free of charge and open to the public. At 4:00 p.m. on Monday, July 23, guest composer Steven Stucky will present a master class with the vocal ensemble Voices of Prometheus at McKee Auditorium on the MU Campus. Presentations by the Festival’s guest resident and faculty composers also will be open to the public. All the composer presentations will take place in the Fine Arts Building’s Room 145.
July 16, 2012
Summer Festival Spotlight: Donnacha Dennehy
It is a privilege and a pleasure to have Donnacha Dennehy as one of the guest composers for the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival. Along with fellow guest composer Steven Stucky, Dennehy will instruct and mentor the Festival’s eight resident composers during their week in Columbia. He’ll also oversee the world premiere of the first part of The Hunger, a large work-in-progress that will be performed by resident ensemble Alarm Will Sound and the Festival’s guest artist, soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird, as part of the concert on Thursday, July 26. Born in 1970 in Dublin, Dennehy is…
July 13, 2012
Summer Festival Spotlight: David Crowell
While some of the resident composers for the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival are recent graduates or still studying for advanced degrees, saxophonist and composer David Crowell already is well along in his professional career. He has a very active schedule as a performer, touring with the famed Philip Glass Ensemble and leading his own band, and his compositions have been performed frequently in New York City and by various student and professional ensembles across the US. In fact, Crowell (pictured) will have two major performances of his works on the same night this month. On Saturday,…
July 13, 2012
Columbia hotels offering discounts during Mizzou New Music Summer Festival
Planning on visiting Columbia for the 2012 Mizzou New Music Summer Festival? If so, you should know that three local hotels are offering discounts for the nights of July 26, 27 and 28 to Festival attendees. They are: Hampton Inn & Suites Columbia (at the University of Missouri) 1225 Fellow’s Place (College Ave. & Stadium Blvd.), Columbia, MO 65201 Phone: 573-214-2222 $105/night + tax for a standard king or double room Ask for “New Music Summer Festival” Tiger Hotel 23 South 8th Street, Columbia, MO 65201 Phone: 573-875-8888…