The Mizzou New Music Ensemble will continue its 2021-22 performance series with a live concert scheduled for 7:30 pm on Sunday, December 5, 2021. The performance will take place on the University of Missouri Campus at the Sinquefield Music Center (SMC 132). The concert is free and open to the public. For those unable to attend in person, the concert will be live-streamed on the University of Missouri School of Music YouTube channel. Members of the 2021-22 Mizzou New Music Ensemble with Artistic Director Yoshiaki Onishi (third from front) and Stefan Freund, Artistic Director of M ..read more

The Mizzou New Music Initiative will welcome Meredith Monk and Angélica Negrón (both pictured below) as distinguished guest composers at the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF), scheduled for Monday, July 25 through Saturday, July 30, 2022 on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia. The week-long MICF will feature concerts of music by Monk, Negrón, and other contemporary composers performed in front of live audiences, along with in-person workshops, master classes, and other events. All events will take place at the ..read more

The University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative have awarded the 2022 Sinquefield Composition Prize to Luis Hermano Bezerra. Now in its 17th year, the Sinquefield Composition Prize is the top award for a composition student at Mizzou. Luis Hermano Bezerra As this year’s winner, Bezerra will be awarded a $1,500 prize and will be commissioned to write a new work for the University Wind Ensemble. The Ensemble will premiere the work as part of the 2022 Chancellor’s Arts Showcase on Friday, February 25, 2022 at Jesse A ..read more

The Mizzou New Music Initiative (MNMI) has returned to presenting live perfomances for the 2021-22 season. As part of our upcoming season, MNMI is looking forward to once again providing young music students in Missouri with the opportunity to hear their new compositions performed in concert through the MNMI Creating Original Music Project (COMP). Now in its 17th year, COMP is an annual statewide competition sponsored by the University of Missouri School of Music and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. COMP showcases new, original music from Missouri student composers and so ..read more

The Missouri Composers Project (MOCOP) is looking for new, large-ensemble music written by Missouri residents to be performed in a concert on March 20, 2022. Now in its tenth year, MOCOP is a collaborative effort involving the Mizzou New Music Initiative, the Columbia Civic Orchestra (CCO), the Columbia Chamber Choir, and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation to bring attention to new large ensemble works written in the state of Missouri. By identifying composers and providing opportunities for the performance of their work, MOCOP showcases emerging talent fr ..read more

Amrita “Ami” Kaur Dang, (pictured) a South Asian-American vocalist, sitarist, composer and producer from Baltimore, will be a visiting artist at the Mizzou New Music Initiative on Nov. 4, and open the 2021 Columbia Experimental Music Festival with a performance that evening. Ami Dang Dang’s concert will take place at A.P. Green Chapel, 518 Hitt St. on the University of Missouri campus at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available for Dang’s concert, as well as other Columbia Experimental Music Festival performances on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 5 and 6 at this link. Face masks and ..read more

Alarm Will Sound in concert The Mizzou New Music Initiative is accepting applications for resident composers to take part in the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival (MICF), which will take place Monday, July 25 through Saturday, July 30, 2022 at the University of Missouri School of Music in Columbia, MO. The week-long MICF will feature concerts of music from contemporary composers performed in front of live audiences, along with in-person workshops, master classes, and other events. All events will take place at the Sinquefield Music Center. Saturday night’s grand final ..read more

Members of the 2021-22 Mizzou New Music Ensemble with Artistic Director Yoshiaki Onishi (third from front) and Stefan Freund, Artistic Directoe of MNMI (fifth from front) For the first time since March, 2020, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will perform in front of a live audience! The concert is scheduled for 7:30 pm on Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021, and will take place on the University of Missouri Campus at the Sinquefield Music Center (SMC 132). The concert is free and open to the public. For those unable to attend in person, the concert will be livestreamed on the MNMI Facebook Page and the Univers ..read more

Dean Minderman performing at the Big Muddy Blues Festival in St. Louis, 2018 We at the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the MU School of Music are saddened to learn of Dean C. Minderman’s passing. Dean was the voice of this blog and our Twitter profile for the last 11 years, and as part of Slay & Associates’s team, worked tirelessly to promote MNMI’s activities. If you’ve ever been a visiting composer or performer at Mizzou, or if you’re a student or faculty composer who’s won an award or participated in an opportunity, Dean has written about you. If you’re a writer, journalist, or media ou ..read more

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 comp ..read more