July 14, 2019

Composers Festival spotlight: Mizzou New Music Ensemble

Occupying their usual spot in the festival lineup, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will be performing during the 2019 Mizzou International Composers Festival as part of Friday night’s “Mizzou New Music” concert at the Missouri Theatre. Their portion of the evening’s program will include works by the MICF’s two distinguished guest composers – “The Blotting” by Donnacha Dennehy and “World Under Glass No. 2” by Amy Beth Kirsten – as well as music by Mizzou student Jack Snelling. The Mizzou New Music Ensemble (pictured) is made up of University of Missouri graduate students under the direction of…

March 26, 2019

Cellist T.J. Borden coming to Mizzou for residency, concert

Cellist and composer T. J. Borden will visit Mizzou next month for a residency and concert. Borden (pictured) will be in Columbia on Tuesday, April 9 and Wednesday, April 10. While on campus, he’ll make a presentation to Mizzou composition students and give private lessons to selected cello students. He’ll wrap up his visit with a concert at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night at Whitmore Recital Hall, performing a work by Mizzou New Music Initative post-doctoral fellow Yoshi Onishi, plus music by composers Zeynap Toraman and Carolyn Chen and the world premiere of “Soften the World,” a new…

Nov. 26, 2018

Mizzou New Music Ensemble to perform works from MADSM competition, Mizzou and more on Sunday, December 2 at Whitmore Recital Hall

The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will perform four new student works plus two pieces from acclaimed contemporary composers in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 2 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the Mizzou campus. Admission is free and open to the public. Two of the student works were selected for the performance through the first-ever Collegiate Composition Competition co-sponsored this year by the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the Missouri Association of Departments and Schools of Music (MADSM). Ryan Jeschke, a senior composition major at Truman State University, won the MADSM competition’s undergraduate…

Oct. 12, 2018

Yoshiaki Onishi to receive 2018 Fromm Commission

Mizzou New Music Initiative post-doctoral fellow Yoshiaki “Yoshi” Onishi has been named a recipient of a 2018 Fromm Commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. Founded by Paul Fromm, a major patron of contemporary music who lived from 1906 to 1987, the Fromm Music Foundation is now in its 62nd year, having been located at Harvard for the past 42. Since the 1950s, it has commissioned more than 300 new compositions and their performances, and has sponsored hundreds of new music concerts and concert series, including the annual Fromm Contemporary Music Series at Harvard. The annual…

Sep. 25, 2018

Mizzou New Music Ensemble to perform music by Daugherty, Sharlat, and Donatoni on Monday, October 15 at Whitmore Recital Hall

The Mizzou New Music Ensemble’s first concert of the 2018-19 season will feature works by two composers who are visiting the University of Missouri campus this fall, and more. The Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday, October 15 at Whitmore Recital Hall, 135 Fine Arts Building on the Mizzou campus. Admission is free and open to the public. The concert will include “Divertissement” by composer Yevgeniy Sharlat, who will be in Columbia the first week in October; and “Sinatra Shag” and “Jackie’s Song” by multiple Grammy Award winner Michael Daugherty, who’s visiting Mizzou for a…

July 16, 2018

Yoshi Onishi answers “5 Questions” from I Care If You Listen

The Mizzou New Music Initiative’s new postdoctoral fellow Yoshiaki “Yoshi” Onishi is the subject of a “5 Questions” interview published last week by the new-music website I Care If You Listen. In the interview, Onishi (pictured) talks with ICIYL’s Alexander Rothe about his compositional process and his ongoing project “Les Six Aspects du Néant” (“The Six Aspects of Nothingness”). The work is a cycle of six pieces for string quartet, parts of which will be performed this fall at the Vertixe Sonora Festival in Spain, the 45th International Viola Congress in Rotterdam, and the Trieste Prima Festival in Italy.

April 11, 2018

Mizzou New Music Initiative awards postdoctoral fellowship to Yoshiaki Onishi

The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) and the University of Missouri School of Music have awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to composer Yoshiaki “Yoshi” Onishi. Starting with the Fall 2018 semester and continuing for two years, Onishi will teach private composition lessons, composition seminar, and freshman ear training to Mizzou students; serve as assistant conductor for the Mizzou New Music Ensemble; and assist with various MNMI programs. He also will begin a major research project to be completed during the two years of his fellowship. Onishi (pictured) made news last week when he was awarded a 2018…