July 15, 2015
Composers Festival spotlight: Justin Pounds
Resident composer Justin Pounds is the University of Missouri’s representative at the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival, and along with Christopher Stark, one of two resident composers this year with ties to Missouri and St. Louis. A St. Louis native who grew up in the suburb of Oakville, Pounds earned his bachelor of music degree at Mizzou, and currently is pursuing a master of music in composition, studying with Dr. Thomas McKenney and Dr. Stefan Freund. This past November, his chamber opera “The Outlaw” was premiered by at Mizzou by the Show-Me Opera. Pounds also…
July 15, 2015
Composers Festival spotlight: Alessandro Ratoci
Alessandro Ratoci has the longest journey of any of this year’s resident composers to get to the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival, coming to Columbia from Lausanne, Switzerland, where he teaches electronic music at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève (Geneva University of Music). Born in Tuscany, Italy, Ratoci majored in composition, piano, and electronic music at the University of Bologna, and then went on to earn his master’s degree in composition at Geneva University of Music, studying with Michael Jarrell, Luis Naón and Eric Daubresse. He then moved to Paris…
July 14, 2015
Composers Festival spotlight: Christopher Stark
Christopher Stark is one of eight resident composers for the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival, and, along with Mizzou’s Justin Pounds, one of two resident composers this year with ties to Missouri and the St. Louis area. Currently an assistant professor of composition at Washington University in St. Louis, Stark is a native of Polson, Montana who describes his music as being “deeply rooted in the American West” and “seeking to capture the expansive energy of this quintessential American landscape.” His honors and awards include the Underwood Commission from the American Composers Orchestra, the prix…
July 14, 2015
Composers Festival spotlight: Emily Koh
Resident composer Emily Koh comes to the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival by way of Singapore, her place of birth, and Boston, where she currently is a Ph.D. candidate in composition and theory at Brandeis University. A bassist as well as a composer, Koh also serves as a visiting faculty member at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, director of concert series at the Boston New Music Initiative, and principal bass for the New England Philharmonic. Her music is characterized by timbral extremes, and has been described as “beautifully eerie” (New York Times), and “subtly…
July 10, 2015
Composers Festival spotlight: Andrew Norman
Along with Hans Abrahamsen, the Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Andrew Norman as one of our two distinguished guest composers for the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival. Currently an assistant professor of composition at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, Norman (pictured) is a graduate of Yale and the University of Southern California. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2006 Rome Prize and the 2009 Berlin Prize, and in 2012 was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his string trio…
July 7, 2015
Composers Festival spotlight: Hans Abrahamsen
All of us at the Mizzou New Music Initiative are pleased to welcome Hans Abrahamsen as one of our two distinguished guest composers for the 2015 Mizzou International Composers Festival. The winner of major honors including the Carl Nielsen Prize (1989) and the Wilhelm Hansen Prize (1998), Abrahamsen (pictured) since 1995 has taught composition and orchestration at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. As a distinguished guest composer for the MICF, he’ll work with the festival’s eight resident composers as a group and individually, and also will give a public presentation on his music.
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…