Sep. 22, 2016
Mizzou New Music Ensemble to open 2016-17 season on Sunday, October 16 at Whitmore Recital Hall
Keith Fitch The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will begin their 2016-17 season with a concert featuring music from a renowned visiting composer, two works written by Mizzou composers, and more. The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, October 16 at Whitmore Recital Hall on the University of Missouri campus. General admission is $5 for the public, free for Mizzou faculty, students and staff. Keith Fitch, who heads the composition department at the prestigious Cleveland Institute of Music, will be in Columbia that weekend for a residency at Mizzou, and the Ensemble’s concert will include his 1994…
Sep. 15, 2016
Missouri Composers Project (MOCOP) seeks new orchestral, choral works for performance in March 2017
Columbia Civic Orchestra For composers of orchestral or choral music, completing a new work often is followed immediately by another formidable challenge: finding an orchestra or choir to perform it. Recognizing this need, the Missouri Composers Project (MOCOP) in 2017 once again is offering performance opportunities for new, large-ensemble music written by Missouri residents. (Founded in 2012 as the Missouri Composers Orchestra Project, MOCOP has been renamed for its sixth year to reflect the inclusion of choral music as well as orchestral works.) MOCOP is a collaborative effort involving the Mizzou New Music Initiative, the Columbia Civic…
July 26, 2016
Composers Festival spotlight: Oscar Bettison
As one of two distinguished guest composers at the 2016 Mizzou International Composers Festival, Oscar Bettison will give a public presentation on his music; mentor and teach the eight resident composers; and work with Alarm Will Sound, who will perform his chamber concerto “Livre des Sauvages” as part of Thursday night’s concert at the Missouri Theatre. A member of the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University since 2009, Bettison originally is from Jersey, UK. He earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the Royal College of Music…
July 24, 2016
Composers Festival spotlight: Wang Lu
Born in Xi’an, the ancient capital of China, 2016 MICF resident composer Wang Lu was raised as part of a musical family immersed in Chinese opera and folk music traditions, and her works “reflect a very natural identification with those influences, through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities.” An assistant professor of music at Brown University since 2015, Wang (pictured) graduated in 2005 from the Central Conservatory of Music in Bejing and earned her doctoral degree in composition in 2012 from Columbia University. Her honors include a 2014 Guggenheim…
July 22, 2016
Composers Festival spotlight: Daniel Silliman
2016 Mizzou International Composers Festival resident composer Daniel Silliman was born in Syracuse, NY and grew up in Katy, TX, near Houston. He began studying piano as a child, and upon graduating high school, enrolled in the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, where his composition teachers included Andrew Norman, who was a distinguished guest composer at last year’s MICF. After graduating summa cum laude from USC in 2015 with a B.M. in composition, Silliman is now a doctoral fellow working on an MFA/Ph.D in composition at Princeton University in New Jersey.
July 21, 2016
Composers Festival spotlight: Wang A Mao
Coming originally from China, Wang A Mao had to travel a long way from home to study composing in the United States. But her journey to Columbia to serve as one of the eight resident composers for this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival was considerably shorter, for as the latest festival participant from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, she only had to travel another hundred miles or so down the road. Wang (pictured) earned her bachelor of arts in composition at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and…
July 20, 2016
Composers Festival spotlight: Trey Makler
Originally from Farmington, Missouri, Trey Makler is Mizzou’s representative among this year’s group of eight resident composers at the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Makler (pictured) just completed his senior year in Columbia, earning his bachelor’s degree studying composition with Stefan Freund and oboe with Dan Willett. While an undergraduate, he has served as vice-president of the Mizzou Composers Guild and president of the Zeta Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia national music fraternity, and he’s also quite familiar with the MICF, having been a production coordinator for the festival for the past three…
July 19, 2016
Composers Festival spotlight: Erin Gee
The innovative composer of vocal music Erin Gee is one of the two distinguished guest composers at this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival. In that capacity, she’ll give a public presentation on her music; teach and interact informally with the festival’s eight resident composers; and be in the audience for performances of her work in concerts by Alarm Will Sound on Thursday night and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble on Friday night. Currently an assistant professor of composition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Gee (pictured) is known particularly for her series of…