Making Missouri a major center for the music of tomorrow

Grammy Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty is coming to Columbia for a residency, and the University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative are welcoming him with three concerts featuring his music in October.

Daugherty, who is a professor of composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, will be in Columbia for two days. On the first evening of his residency, the MU Wind Ensemble will perform his works “On the Air” and “Niagara Falls” as part of a concert at 7:00 p.m. Monday, October 8 at the Missouri Theatre. Admission to the performance is $5 for the general public, free for MU students, faculty and staff with IDs.

The next evening, seven more of Daugherty’s compositions will be featured a concert devoted entirely to his music, with performances by Mizzou faculty ensembles ZouM and DRAX; the Missouri Saxophone Quartet; the Mizzou New Music Ensemble; and faculty soloists Eli Lara, Leigh Muñoz and Julie Rosenfeld. That concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 9 at Whitmore Recital Hall, and is free and open to the public.

While he’s on campus, Daugherty (pictured) also will make a presentation on his music, give private lessons to composition students, and work with the Mizzou New Music Ensemble, who will complete the concert trilogy when they play two of his works in their first performance of the semester on Monday, October 15, also at Whitmore Recital Hall.

Daugherty is a composer, pianist, and teacher who’s originally from Cedar Rapids, IA. He is one of the most widely performed American concert music composers of his generation, influenced by Romanticism, Postmodernism, and popular culture, and known for referencing in his music iconic figures ranging from Elvis Presley and Superman to Frida Kahlo and Jackie Onassis.

His teachers included notable 20th century composers such as Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Bernard Rands and Roger Reynolds from 1980-82 at Yale; Pierre Boulez in 1979 and 1980 at IRCAM in Paris; and György Ligeti from 1982 to 1984 in Hamburg. Daugherty was also an assistant to famed jazz arranger Gil Evans from 1980 to 1982 in New York.

Daugherty’s orchestral music has received six Grammy awards, including “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” in 2011 and 2017, and has been commissioned and premiered by major orchestras such as the Albany Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony (U.K), Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, RAI Symphony Orchestra (Milan), and San Francisco Symphony.

Composer Yevgeniy Sharlat is coming to Mizzou next month for a residency and concert.

Sharlat, who’s an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, will be in Columbia on Monday, October 1 and Tuesday, October 2.

While he’s on campus, he’ll give a presentation and private lessons to composition students and coach the Mizzou New Music Ensemble, who will perform his piece “Divertissement” in their first concert of the semester on Monday, October 15.

Sharlat’s visit will conclude with the premiere of his new work “Trio Contemplating the Moon,” which was commissioned by Trio Séléné with funding from the Mizzou New Music Initiative and will be performed as part of their concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 2 at Whitmore Recital Hall.

Born in 1977 in Moscow, Russia, Sharlat majored in violin, piano, and music theory at the Academy of Moscow Conservatory. Immigrating to the United States in 1994, he studied composition at the Juilliard Pre-College, Curtis Institute of Music, and Yale University, where he earned his masters and doctoral degrees.

He has written music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo, theater, ballet, and film, and was the recipient of the 2006 Charles Ives Fellowship from American Academy of Arts and Letters. His other honors include a Fromm Music Foundation Commission; ASCAP’s Morton Gould, Boosey & Hawkes, and Leiber & Stoller awards; Yale University’s Rena Greenwald Award; and fellowships from the MacDowell and Yaddo artists’ communities.

Sharlat has received recent commissions from organizations including the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Seattle Chamber Players, Astral Artistic Services, and LA Piano Duo. His music also has been performed by ensembles such as Kremerata Baltica, the Seattle Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, Seattle Chamber Players, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, and others.

Originally from Curitiba, Brazil, resident composer Igor Santos comes to the 2018 Mizzou International Composers Festival by way of Chicago, where he recently earned his PhD in music composition from the University of Chicago.

Before that, Santos received his M.A. from the Eastman School of Music, where he was an active member of the Ossia New Music group, assisting in organizing and promoting concerts of contemporary music.

He earned his B.M. in composition and electronic music from the University of South Florida, also serving as a board member and pianist for the USF Composer’s Consortium.

Santos has written a new work for the MICF called “through thoughts of a different kind,” which will be premiered by resident ensemble Alarm Will Sound along with new music from the other six resident composers at the fest’s grand finale on Saturday, April 28 at the Missouri Theatre.

Santos’ music has been performed by groups such as eighth blackbird, Ensemble Intercontemporain, POING, Ensemble Dal Niente, Spektral Quartet and The Florida Orchestra. He also frequently writes incidental theater music in collaboration with director David Frankel and the Tampa Repertory Theatre.

He has participated in workshops and festivals such as Impuls in Graz, Austria; Time of Music in Viitasaar, Finland; ManiFeste and Fontainebleau in Paris, France; Synthetis in Radziejowice, Poland; Brevard Music Center in North Carolina; and more.

In 2017, Santos won first prize in the Luigi Nono International Composition Competition, and also was awarded a prize for “Best Sound Design” from Theatre Tampa Bay.

For more about Igor Santos, listen to his recent interview on Classical 90.5 FM’s “Mizzou Music” program.

“towards snow,” performed by the Volta Trio, and Joseph Yungen on April 6, 2011 at the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall

“Étude nº 1,” recorded live by Winston Choi on May 10, 2015 as part of the Project Incubator concert at Constellation Chicago

The Mizzou New Music Initiative is pleased to welcome Alex Mincek as one of the two distinguished guest composers for this year’s Mizzou International Composers Festival.

In addition to composing, New York-based Mincek also is the saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and artistic director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, a contemporary music group he founded in 1998.

Two of his works will be performed during the MICF. Thursday night’s concert by Alarm Will Sound will feature the world premiere of “Chimeras,” a newly commissioned work by Mincek. Then on Friday, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble will perform “Portraits and Repetitions,” which he wrote in 2007.

While he’s in Columbia, Mincek also will give a public presentation about his music; teach the seven resident composers in individual and group sessions; and consult with Alarm Will Sound and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble on the performances of his works.

Born and raised in Florida, Mincek moved to New York City in 1995 to study saxophone at the Manhattan School of Music. After receiving his undergraduate degree, he pursued a master’s degree in composition at the Manhattan School, followed by doctoral studies at Columbia University, where in 2011 he earned his DMA.

Mincek’s music has been programmed at major venues and festivals including Carnegie Hall, Miller Theatre, the Musica festival in Strasbourg, Festival Présences of Radio France, Festival Archipel in Geneve, Voix Nouvelles at the Abbaye de Royaumont in Paris, Festival des Musiques Démesurées in Clermont-Ferrand, the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD), Unerhörte Musik in Berlin, the Contempuls Festival in Prague, and the Ostrava New Music Days.

He has collaborated with ensembles including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the Janacek Philharmonic, Ensemble Cairn, Ensemble Le Balcon, Ensemble Linea, Ensemble XXI, SEM Ensemble, Present Music, Talea Ensemble, Dal Niente, Yarn/Wire, Mivos Quartet, and the JACK Quartet.

Mincek’s awards and commissions include an Alpert Award in the Arts in 2013, as well as recognition from institutions such as the Guggenheim Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, ASCAP, the National Endowment for the Arts, MATA, Radio France, the Barlow Endowment, Meet The Composer, and the Issue Project Room.

Along with three albums by Wet Ink and several early recordings as a member of the band Zs, Mincek has put out two albums under his own name: an eponymous set in 2011 on Carrier Records, and Torrent, released in 2017 with deluxe packaging and a 28-page booklet to launch Sound American’s Young Composer Portrait (YCP) series.

For more about Alex Mincek, read music journalist and critic George Grella’s essay on his music, published in 2016 in Music & Literature magazine; watch an interview with Mincek after his Alpert Award win, and listen to his 2013 interview on NYC radio station WQXR. You can hear some samples of his music via the embedded players below.

Excerpt from “Color-Form-Line,” recorded December 15, 2015 at St. Peter’s Church in New York City by Wet Ink Ensemble, featuring Erin Lesser (flutes), Alex Mincek (saxophone), Ryan Muncy (saxophone), Eric Wubbels (piano), Ian Antonio (percussion), Josh Modney (violin), and Kate Soper (voice)

“String Quartet No. 3,” performed by Mivos Quartet on February 8th, 2013 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City