Aug. 17, 2021
Stefan Freund wins commission from Barlow Endowment
University of Missouri professor of composition and Mizzou New Music Initiative artistic director Stefan Freund has won a commission for 2021 from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition. Freund (pictured) was one of 9 composers selected from among 259 applications this year to the Endowment’s General and LDS commissioning programs, which will award grants totaling $60,000 to the winners. The Barlow Endowment was established in September 1983 through a gift from Milton A. and Gloria Barlow to Brigham Young University for the purpose of “engendering and supporting excellence in musical composition through the university and the BYU College…
Aug. 9, 2021
Mizzou composer, musicians featured in PBS special celebrating Missouri’s bicentennial
A new work written by a Mizzou composer and performed by MU faculty members will be featured in “Show Me the Music: A Celebration of the Missouri Bicentennial,” a television special that will air beginning this week on PBS affiliates in Missouri. “Waterways” was written on commission specifically for the bicentennial project by Stefan Freund (pictured), who is MNMI’s artistic director and professor of composition at Mizzou. The work then was performed and recorded in May at the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis by MU faculty members Alice Dade (flute), Eli Lara (cello), Julie Rosenfeld…
June 16, 2021
Mizzou New Music Ensemble featured on new recording
The Mizzou New Music Ensemble is featured on Black Pierrot, a new album by Mizzou’s University Singers that is being released this week on the Centaur Records label. The album (pictured) is described as “a program of great choral works, including one work from the 1500s, works from the 20th Century,” plus the title track, which is performed by the Singers and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble, directed by Stefan Freund. It’s the world premiere recording of this new work, which was commissioned from composer William Averitt by R. Paul Crabb, director of choral activities at…
June 14, 2021
Mizzou International Composers Festival to return
July 26-31 with nine world premieres and more
After a year in which the COVID-19 pandemic forced last-minute changes in programming, the Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF) is back in 2021 in a more familiar form. Presented Monday, July 26 through Saturday, July 31 by the Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) and the University of Missouri School of Music, the twelfth annual MICF will showcase the world premieres of new works from nine resident composers and more, with all four concerts streamed online for free. The schedule of performances is: Tuesday, July 27: “World Premieres I,” featuring resident ensemble Alarm Will Sound performing…
April 29, 2021
Springfield Symphony to perform Stefan Freund’s “Ragfare” in concerts on Saturday, May 8
The Springfield Symphony will perform “Ragfare,” a work written by University of Missouri professor of composition Stefan Freund, in a pair of concerts on Saturday, May 8 at the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts in Springfield, MO. Freund (pictured), who’s also a cellist, conductor, and the artistic director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative, originally composed “Ragfare” for the Columbia Civic Orchestra to play at the reopening in 2008 of the renovated Missouri Theatre in Columbia. Inspired for the occasion by the music of Scott Joplin, Freund says that he “wanted to write a…
July 13, 2020
Mizzou International Composers Festival going online for 2020,
will take place Monday, July 27 – Saturday, August 1
Clockwise from top: Alarm Will Sound, Khemia Ensemble, Mizzou New Music Ensemble Responding to the restrictions on live events imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mizzou International Composers Festival is going online for 2020. The 11th annual edition of the MICF is set for Monday, July 27 through Saturday, August 1, with events streamed online from the Facebook pages of the Mizzou New Music Initiative and resident ensembles Alarm Will Sound and Khemia Ensemble, and from the YouTube channels of the University of Missouri School of Music, Alarm Will Sound, and Khemia Ensemble. At 9:00 p.m. CDT on…
Feb. 28, 2020
Mizzou New Music Ensemble to preview music from upcoming tour of South America and more on Monday, March 9 at Sinquefield Music Center
The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will present a preview of music from their upcoming tour of South America and more in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 9 at the Sinquefield Music Center on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia. The concert is free and open to the public. For their first concert of 2020 and their first public performance at the new Sinquefield Music Center, the Ensemble (pictured) will play two new works written by Mizzou graduate composition students, “Cataretê” by Luis Hermano Bezerra and “Ancient Echoes” by Daniel Fitzpatrick. Both pieces were composed specifically for…
Feb. 27, 2020
Mizzou New Music Ensemble hitting the road in May
for concert in Texas, tour of South America
The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will hit the road this spring to perform a concert in Fort Worth, TX, followed by a tour of South America that will take them to Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay. The journey will begin with a performance at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, May 9 at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Ft. Worth, TX, where the Ensemble (pictured) will perform a program of new works created by Mizzou composition students in response to images from the museum’s collection. Junior composition major Ben Dawson’s piece is inspired by the Carter Museum’s…