March 9, 2012
MNMI in the media: Stephanie Berg, Donovan Tousignant, eighth blackbird
The Mizzou New Music Initiative continues to make news on campus, in Columbia, and throughout the state of Missouri and the world of music. Most recently, two young composers associated with the MNMI were featured in the Columbia Daily Tribune. Stephanie Berg, a graduate student who’s a member of the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and a past winner of the Sinquefield Composition Prize, was profiled by the Tribune‘s Jill Renae Hicks in a story on February 19. Berg will be one of the resident composers at this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, to be held July…
Feb. 10, 2012
Columbia celebrates contemporary composers with four visionary events in March
For the past two years, the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival has brought visionary composers and musicians to Columbia in July for a week of concerts and workshops. Now the Mizzou New Music Initiative, will team up in March with the Columbia Civic Orchestra and Odyssey Chamber Music Series to present another week of performances focusing on the future of music. “4C: Columbia Celebrates Contemporary Composers” will take place from Sunday, March 4 through Saturday, March 10. The week will feature concerts by four different ensembles, including the Columbia debut of the Grammy Award winning…
Jan. 31, 2012
Missouri Composers Orchestra Project selects four winning new works
The Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO) and the Mizzou New Music Initiative have announced the selection of four orchestral compositions written by Missouri residents to be performed by the CCO at a concert in March. The works were chosen in a statewide competition conducted under the auspices of the Missouri Composers Orchestra Project (MOCOP). The winners will receive a $500 honorarium from MOCOP’s sponsor, the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. The three works chosen in the Open category are “Euphoria Overture” by Michael Blackwood, who lives in Florissant and teaches orchestra for the Rockwood School District; “This Is the Garden”…
Jan. 9, 2012
Mizzou New Music Summer Festival’s resident composers will bring diversity to 2012 event
From a London-based composer pursuing a doctorate at the Royal Academy of Music, to a Greek studying music in upstate New York, to a Kansas City native working towards her Master’s degree at Mizzou, the resident composers selected for this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival are perhaps the most diverse group yet in the event’s three-year history. The University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative today announced the eight resident composers selected for the 2012 Festival, which will take place Monday, July 23 through Saturday, July 28 in Columbia. Chosen through…
Nov. 23, 2011
Mizzou New Music Ensemble to perform three world premieres Monday, December 5 at Whitmore Recital Hall
The Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) will continue its 2011-12 season with a concert at 8:00 p.m., December 5 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the University of Missouri campus. Admission to the concert is free for Mizzou students, $5 suggested donation for the general public. The concert will feature three world premieres by composers associated with Mizzou, plus works from modern masters Steven Stucky and John Adams. Adams, known for his pioneering minimalist composition “Shaker Loops” and the operas Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, is the composer of “Christian Zeal and Activity,” a…
Nov. 23, 2011
Stephanie Berg wins statewide composition competition
University of Missouri graduate student Stephanie Berg (pictured) has won this year’s award in the “Young Artist” category of the Missouri State Division of Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) composition competition. Berg, who is pursuing a Master’s degree in clarinet performance and composition at Mizzou, was recognized for her piece “Of Air Sweet and Water Deep.” The work was composed in 2010 for the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and premiered at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis as part of a tribute to the Garden’s President Emeritus, Dr. Peter Raven. “Of Air Sweet and Water Deep”…
Nov. 23, 2011
Kirsten, Podgursky win commissions from Harvard’s Fromm Foundation
Congratulations to Amy Beth Kirsten and Jeremy Podgursky, both resident composers at the inaugural Mizzou New Music Summer Festival in 2010, for winning $10,000 commissions this year from Harvard University’s Fromm Music Foundation. The Fromm Music Foundation has been located at Harvard since 1972, and has commissioned more than 300 new compositions and their performances, as well as sponsoring hundreds of new music concerts and concert series. Kirsten and Podgursky are among 12 winners of commissions this year.
Nov. 1, 2011
Missouri Composers Orchestra Project seeks recent works for performance in March
The Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO) and the Mizzou New Music Initiative are looking for recent orchestral compositions written by Missouri residents to perform at a concert in March, 2012. To inaugurate the Missouri Composers Orchestra Project, a new program sponsored by the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, the CCO will present a concert of six recent works by Missouri composers at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, March 10 at Columbia College’s Launer Auditorium, 901 Rogers Street in Columbia. Four of the works presented at the concert will be selected through a competitive process – one from the High School category…