July 17, 2024
MICF Resident Composer Spotlight: Davor Vincze
Davor Vincze is a composer of contemporary music whose artistic focus lies on meta-reality and musical mosaicking. Inspired by technology and science fiction, he searches for hidden acoustic spaces or ways to blur the real and the imaginary, often using electronics and AI tools. Working with mosaics (multiple copies of fragmented sound gestures), using technique he calls “microllage,” he searches for fluid sounds that allow for non-binary, ambiguous, or “androgynous” interpretations. The world premiere of Vincze’s piece Ashes will be performed at MICF by Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound. “It was…
July 17, 2024
MICF Resident Composer Spotlight: Benjamin Scheuer
Benjamin Scheuer’s music is all about sensuality and humor. Both his staged and concert pieces contain theatrical elements and often evoke an atmosphere of darkly colored playfulness. In his works, found objects from daily life are frequently being presented onstage, either live or sampled. Scheuer doesn’t consider himself to be a composer of electronic music, but rather focuses on a world of “live-electrics” in which sounds are produced with the easiest and most economic means possible. His main interest is the human being playing music with its individual characteristic and its tendency to fail whilst technology just…
July 12, 2024
MICF Resident Composer Spotlight: Liu Yingting
Liu Yingting, a composer from Hunan, China, studied at the China Conservatory of Music as an undergraduate and achieved top honors upon admission to the Central Conservatory of Music for her master’s degree. Her creative journey is centered around exploring the harmonious blend of Chinese Taoism and Jesa culture with contemporary music, and her works are deeply rooted in religious music culture. Liu Yingting Yingting has won numerous awards in international music competitions, including the 10th Rivers Awards Composition Competition (RACC), the 17th Sun River Prize (ISCM) New Music Competition, the 4th New Music Generation International Composition Competition, the 2nd…
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…