For 2012, a total of 22 elementary, middle school and high school students from across Missouri have been awarded prizes in the competition. As a reward for their work, they’ll get a chance to perform their winning compositions at the 2012 Creating Original Music Project Festival. The Festival will take place:

C.O.M.P. is a joint venture of the University of Missouri School of Music and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, which provides an annual gift of $50,000 to sponsor the competition. The program was created in 2005 to encourage K-12 students in Missouri to write original musical works and to encourage performances of those works. The 2012 competition had a total of 94 entries in eight different categories, with winners ranging in age from eight years old to 18.

“Since we first started C.O.M.P. seven years ago, we’ve had nearly 500 entries from young composers across the state,” said Jeanne Sinquefield of the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. “A number of them have gone on to become multiple winners, and we’re delighted to give them an opportunity to express themselves and develop their skills. Their success is an indication of real progress towards our goal of making Missouri a center for the composition of new music.”

The 2012 Creating Original Music Project (C.O.M.P.) competition categories and winners include:

Elementary – Song with words
1) Menea Vladi Kefalov & Ande Celeste Siegel of Reed Elementary School, St. Louis, for “War.” Music teacher: Sarah Schwartz.
2) Elizabeth Y. Murray of Reeds Spring Elementary, Reeds Springs, for “The Road Home Song.” Music teacher: Sue Gillen.
3) Grace Filer of Harrisonville Christian School, Harrisonville, for “Only Holy One.” Music teacher: Kay Schrock.

Elementary – Instrumental
1) Hyun Jun (John) Yoo of Fairview Elementary, Columbia, for “Earthquake’s Destruction.” Music teacher: Sara Dexheimer.
2) Tristan Handy of Daniel Young Elementary, Blue Springs, for “Windswept Dreams.” Music teachers: Connie Bates and Debbie Gray.
3) Olivia Bennett of Mathews Elementary, Nixa, for “Count Olaf.” Music teacher: Annette Genung.

Middle School – Popular
1) Anthony Delia of Holy Infant School, Ballwin, for “Words.” Music teacher: Eric Henson.
2) Lileana Ibur of Wydown Middle School, Clayton, for “Nothing Boy.” Music teachers: Aaron Doerr and Jerry Estes.
3) Sarah Meadows of West Junior High, Columbia, for “Another New Day Begins.” Music teachers: Sutu Forte and James Melton.

Middle School – Fine Art
1) Savannah Kitchen of Lange Middle School, Columbia, for “Winter’s Waltz.” Music teachers: Suzanne Kitchen and Allison Schmidt.
2) Alice Ann Yu of West Junior High, Columbia, for “Traveling Around The World.” Music teachers: Mabel Kinder and Margaret Lawless.
3) Edward Tsang of Heartland High School, Belton, for “Dramatization.” Music teacher: Nah Han Dahmer.

High School – Fine Art
1) Gus Knobbe of Webster Groves High School, Webster Groves, for “Madness.” Music Teacher: Dane Williams
2) Carter Datz of Hickman High School, Columbia, for “Celtic Blessing.” Music Teacher: Matt Felts.
3) Bryan Gibson of Webb City High School, Webb City, for “Salva me.”
Music teacher: Diana Williams.

High School – Jazz
1) Benedetto Colagiovanni of Clayton High School, Clayton, for “Waltz For Bill.” Music Teachers: Rick Zelle and Alice Fasman.
2) Brandon Moore of Dexter High School, Dexter, for “Morning Jog.” Music teacher: Scott Rybolt.
3) Ben Bergstrom of Rock Bridge High School, Columbia, for “Nessy.” Music teacher: Steve Mathews.

High School – Popular
1) Ross Menefee of Hickman High School, Columbia, for “Turn Your Shoulder.” Music teacher: Denis Swope
2) Tanner Qualls, a home-schooled student from Lee’s Summit, for “Secrets and Lies.”
3) Jaron Christopher Geil, a home-schooled student from Grandview, for “This Crime.”

Each student who enters the competition must have the signature and sponsorship of his or her school’s music teacher. Community agencies, churches, after-school programs, private teachers and other musical mentors also may sponsor their young musicians in partnership with the student’s school music teacher.

The Creating Original Music Project (C.O.M.P) is part of the Mizzou New Music Initiative, a diverse array of programs intended to position the University of Missouri School of Music as a leading center in the areas of composition and new music. The Initiative is the direct result of the generous support of Dr. Jeanne and Mr. Rex Sinquefield and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation.

For more information:

University of Missouri School of Music:
http://music.missouri.edu/

Mizzou New Music Initiative:
http://mizzounewmusic.missouri.edu/

Creating Original Music Project (C.O.M.P.):
http://music.missouri.edu/COMP/

Sinquefield Charitable Foundation:
http://www.sinquefieldcharitablefoundation.com/

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Missouri Student Composers Win Prizes In Statewide Music Competition

MIZZOU Alumni Magazine Recognizes Sinquefield Composition Prize and Talks with 2011 Winner Patrick Clark

Rex and Jeanne share the importance of tapping into undiscovered talents, finding and growing composition in Missouri, and the goals and success of the Missouri New Music Initiative.


A symposium of America’s leading arts donors

July 1, 2011

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know About Giving to the Arts

“Tapping Into Undiscovered Talents”

Just giving money to composers and music programs isn’t enough. The Missouri New Music

Initiative is designed to find composers, to assist them in the development of their skills by

arranging for them to work with musical groups, and to have their compositions performed by

encouraging orchestras and ensembles to perform newly commissioned pieces. In the last 6 years,

the Missouri New Music Initiative has resulted in more than 100 new pieces of music being written

by composers aged 7 to 82 and being performed by ensembles, symphonies, and other musical groups. Giving to the

arts is a great way to tap into undiscovered talents and interests. With some thought and planning, arts contributors

can inspire composers, musicians, and audiences to think in new ways, to see the world in a new light, and to appreciate

things that they never knew they liked or possibly did not know existed.

What is Your Favorite Hidden gem in Arts and Culture?

“Finding and Growing Composers in Missouri”

As the result of our dedication to finding and growing composers in Missouri, we are now finding

hidden gems of new music now are popping up in unexpected and wonderful places throughout

mid-Missouri and St. Louis. In the last five years, two mid-Missouri orchestras have performed a

total of 20 new compositions. Recently, a winning composition from the Creating Original Music

Program was played by an orchestra in Thailand and by the St. Louis Symphony’s Youth Orchestra.

A new project called the Sound of Art was inspired by collaborations with the Missouri Botanical Garden and the

Contemporary Art Museum of Missouri.

Tell Me about a Really Smart Grant to the Arts

“Missouri New Music Initiative”

There is music being composed in the minds of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Missourians—music that is never

performed and never heard. The Sinquefield Charitable Foundation established the Missouri New Music Initiative t

o find and grow composers throughout the state and turn Missouri into a mecca for the original composition of music.

It began with the Creating Original Music Program for Missouri’s K–12th graders, in affiliation with the University of

Missouri–Columbia. The program is a competition for original compositions, where the winners receive a cash prize

and their entries are performed at our annual music festival. That program has expanded to a high school summer

camp, undergraduate and graduate level programs, a distance learning program, the Missouri New Music Ensemble,

and a New Music Summer Festival that attracts composers from all over the world to Missouri for a week-long

program.

—Index fund pioneer Rex Sinquefield co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). Jeanne Sinquefield oversaw trading at DFA and is a string bassist in three Missouri symphonies. They are co-founders of the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation.

Online at: http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/article.asp?article=1682&paper=0&cat=149
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/article.asp?article=1683&paper=0&cat=149
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/article.asp?article=1685&paper=0&cat=149

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Jeanne Sinquefield – “Music is the Joy of my life”

By AARIK DANIELSEN

Posted July 11, 2011 at 12:24 p.m.

After seeing a transcendent live performance from a young and as yet unknown singer-songwriter, rock critic Jon Landau put pen to paper in 1974 andwrote, “I saw rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”

Upon hearing the music of Anna Clyne, enthusiasts in a variety of camps – those who identify themselves among the classical, new music and electronic and traditions – might well be able to say they have seen the future of music itself.

Born in 1980, Clyne has already compiled an artistic resume that would make even the most seasoned composer do a double take. She has enjoyed commissions from Carnegie Hall and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, had her work programmed by artists the caliber of Björk, Martin Scorsese and Alex Ross and contributed to a number of exciting collaborations with artists in a variety of mediums, from dance to visual art and film.

Her work both sounds remarkable and signifies a dynamic new direction in which music and other mediums are connected at an almost cellular level. Clyne is one of two guest composers at the second Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, which begins today. She and Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Reynolds will interact with eight resident composers, including MU graduate student Patrick David Clark, lending guidance and wisdom to their pursuits. Clyne’s own music will be performed throughout the festival as well. She recently engaged in an email exchange with the Tribune, discussing the remarkable arc of her career and the arc of art music today.

Tribune: You have received many accolades and accomplished a great deal, yet you’ve just entered your thirties. To what to do you attribute the recognition you’ve garnered to date? What has been the most satisfying experience of your career thus far?

Clyne: I feel extremely fortunate to have had so many wonderful opportunities as a young composer. I hope that the recognition I have gained to date stems from my hard work and a musical language that speaks with real emotion. Moving to New York with a bag and a cello when I was 21 was a risk, being from a very modest background. I worked as a waitress, cleaner, florist, freelance cellist, teacher – often several at the same time – to make ends meet. There was no back-up option, which gave me a real sense of drive to make the most of this vibrant city and the opportunities it offers.

Though tough at times, New York was the perfect playground to make these explorations and to meet some incredibnly inspiring musicians and artists. The most moving experience in my career so far was hearingEsa-Pekka Salonen premiere “Within Her Arms” with 15 strings from the LA Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall in April 2009. He captured the essence of the music from the core, and led a performance that will stay in my memory forever.

Tribune: Who are some of the composers – and/or artists in other mediums – with whom you feel the most creative/stylistic kinship? Are there people or movements which have influenced your sound that might not be discernable upon a first or even second listen?

Clyne: My music has many influences, including my teachers Marina Admia, at Edinburgh University, Julia Wolfe and Nils Vigeland at Manhattan School of Music. I am also often inspired by artists from other fields within the arts – examples include choreographer Kitty McNamee of Hysterica Dance Company; visual artist Joshue Ott with his custom live drawing software, superDraw; and painter Josh Dorman who created exquisite paintings with collage, drawing and painting. When I start a piece, it often has a visual image or a sense of movement, so collaborating with artists who specialize in these forms of expression can be really exciting and inspiring.

I’m not from a musical family, and I didn’t grow up around classical music. As a child, my parents’ LP collection ranged from Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Lou Reed, Nina Simone and Bob Dylan to Chilean folk music from the ’70s and ’80s. When I was 7, family friends gave us a piano with randomly missing keys. My mother, then a midwife, was nursing for a lady whose husband, David, taught piano. I took lessons, and as I began to play, I simultaneously began to compose – my first piece being a little piano solo “The Sea.” Composition has always been a great love of mine – a chance to escape into an imaginary world. It wasn’t until I was 20, however, that I had my first formal composition lessons at Queen’s University in Canada. I sometimes wonder whether the freedom of a non-musically-inclined household, and a late start with formal training, provided an open canvas in which to explore sound for myself, with no preconceptions or pressures.

Tribune: Your artistic statement speaks clearly of the need to dialogue, of your intent to complement and interact with other art forms and artists. When did this desire emerge and begin to shape your purpose as a composer? What are some of the more memorable or significant artistic lessons you’ve learned from fellow collaborators?

Clyne: At Edinburgh University, where I received my Bachelor of Music degree, I became friends with a lot of artists outside of the music department – including students at the Edinburgh College of Art, which was close to the music building. My first collaboration was with a visual artist, Joshua Bryan, who created a short 6-minute film – “Approach” – which I scored for metronome, instrumental trio and electronics. Next was a score for a theatrical adaptaion of Oscar Wilde’s “Fairy Stories” for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002, which included music for dance, song and underscoring. With this I was hooked on collaborating with other arts/artists.

Tribune: In this same spirit of collaboration and give-and-take, what do you hope to impart as you work with emerging composers at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, and what do you hope to glean for yourself? If you had only five or ten minutes in a room with another composer, what sorts of questions would you ask or ideas would you introduce so that you might mutually benefit?

Clyne: I am very much looking forward to getting to know the Fellows and their music at this year’s Mizzou New Music Summer Festival. I hope to listen as carefully as possible to their music and questions and to give as much feedback as possible. I hope that our discussions will include a range of topics, from analysis and the use of technology to life as a composer. Leaving school and mentorship is a challenging transition. In many ways, one has to become one’s own teacher – questioning musical decisions in the process of writing, and finding a critical eye for yourself. I hope that I can offer some form of perspective on this and will feel rewarded if this happens! I thoroughly enjoy teaching composition. In New York, I directed the New York Youth Symphony’s award-winning young composers’ program, Making Score, with students ranging from 11-20. Here in Chicago, I have a private studio and also teach workshops for local young composers and incarcerated youth at a nearby juvenile detention center – all very different contexts, and all with their own challenges.

Tribune: Give local audiences a bit of context for the works you will be presenting at next week’s festival. What experiences informed those works? Do you have any expectations or desires whatsoever for how an audience might interact with them?

Clyne: I feel extremely honored that Alarm Will Sound will perform “BLUSH” and that students from the University of Missouri will perform “steelworks” and “rapture.”

BLUSH (baritone, laptop, instrumental ensemble – 2007) was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the Profesional Training Workshop with Dawn Upshaw and Osvaldo Golijov. Alan Pierson conducted the premiere. The work is strictly notated, other than the laptop part which is more freely notated with a series of instructions. For this performance we are trying something new with the piece – 4 additional musicians/instruments have been added to the mix and will be improvising from the laptop and vocal score. I love that Alarm Will Sound are open to trying to this and look forward to hearing the results!

“steelworks” (flute/piccolo, bass clarinet, percussion, tape and film – 2006) was commissioned by TACTUS, the contemporary music ensemble at Manhattan School of Music, in 2005 and premiered at Greenfield Hall in New York City, 2006. A film was created for the work by visual artist Luke DuBois. The tape part incorporates recordings of interviews with employees and machinery at Flame Cut Steelworks, the last steelworks factory in Brooklyn, which later relocated from its Williamsburg location. These recordings became the kernel for the music. “steelworks” was choreographed by Matthew Neenan and premiered with his company, BalletX, at Wilma Theater, Philadelphia in 2008. Subsequent performances include musicians from the Chicago Symphony Concert at MusicNOW, and in New York City at Cornelia Street Cafe and NewMusicMannes at the Mannes School of Music, with performances further afield by Sentieri Selvaggi in Italy, and Psappha in the UK. This performance will include the film made by Luke.

“rapture” [clarinet with effects & tape - 2005] was composed for Australian clarinetist Eileen Mack and was premiered at Symphony Space in New York City, 2005, with live visuals created by Joshue Ott and his custom program, superDraw. Other performances in the U.S. include the Bang on a Can Marathon, New York; The Stone, New York; f(x) Music Marathon, Miami; Poncho Concert Hall, Seattle and recent European performances in Croatia, Denmark, Latvia and Poland. This performance will include a pre-recorded version of the live visuals by Joshue Ott/superDraw. This piece is very intense … I wonder how the audience will respond …

Both “steelworks” and “rapture” are very challenging technically, and I am thrilled that the students have undertaken these works.

Tribune: You are someone on the vanguard of an area that has been called new music, art music, classical music (as well as a variety of other designations). You also have an entire career ahead of you. What direction do you see art music going and how do you believe your work can play a part in that trajectory?

Clyne: It’s a very exciting time to be a composer. Boundaries between different musical genres have been smashed open and technology has revolutionized music making – from notation programs to wild electronics. I hope to expand my work through working with experts in a wider array of fields – I have a wonderful friend, Elizabeth Tasker, an excellent astrophysicist who specializes in theoretical galaxy formations. Despite the disparate nature of our fields, we both utilize electronics extensively in our work and we face many of the same challenges. It would be great to work on a new work together – perhaps coupling her images and code with music. It seems that the various art mediums are becoming increasingly combined in such a way that classifications become less obvious. For example, live visualists can create an additional “instrument” to the ensemble.

An example that springs to mind is “TENDER HOOKS,” a double laptop concerto that was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2008. This piece was scored for orchestra and live visuals (laptop 1) and live electronics (laptop 2), performed by Joshue Ott and Jeremy Flower, respectively. In this piece, both laptops were used as instruments – and each with a carefully detailed part within the score. It was also an experiment in making an organic relationship between the three elements – we hooked up a whole bunch of cables and triggers (such as theremins and foot pedals) to transfer data between the three, so at any given moment one would be influencing the other. Experimentation in new sound worlds is going to be a fascinating development into the future.

Anna Clyne’s “rapture” will be performed 8 p.m. Tuesday night at Whitmore Recital Hall, on the University of Missouri campus, as part of “Another World’s Rapture Remix: An Electroacoustic Chamber Recital.” “BLUSH” will be performed Thursday on the program “Seasons with Alarm Will Sound and Susan Narucki”; the concert takes place at 7 p.m. at Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts. “steelworks” will be performed 7 p.m. Friday at the Missouri Theatre during “Mizzou’s Right to Bear New Music.” All concerts are $10 for adults, $5 for students.

Additionally, Clyne will give a presentation at 7 tonight in the Fine Arts Building, room 145, on the MU campus. That event is free and open to the public. For a full Mizzou New Music Summer Festival schedule, go here. Photo credit: Courtesy Mizzou New Music Summer Festival.

Online at: http://www.columbiatribune.com/weblogs/art-axis/2011/jul/11/clyne/

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Columbia Missourian Features the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival

Mizzou New Music Summer Festival to include 10 world premieres

Experiences, musings spark creation of new music

Thursday, July 7, 2011 | 6:26 p.m. CDT; updated 8:24 a.m. CDT, Friday, July 8, 2011

BY WILL FLOYD

COLUMBIA — Every new piece of music has a story behind it, a bud of inspiration that will blossom into the vision of the artist.

For Steven Snowden, that story starts with a summer job working beside his father at a construction site. He is one of eight resident composers whose work will premiere next week at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival.

“I could hear bits and pieces of classic rock songs between drills and other random power tools, and I would often get very short fragments of these songs stuck in my head with no memory of their context,” said Snowden, who grew up in Branson. “These bits and pieces would eventually evolve into something that hardly resembled the original, similar to the process of saying a word over and over until it no longer makes any sense.”

Those memories prompted Snowden to compose “For So Long It’s Not True,” which is based on seconds and half-seconds of “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin.

“I never listened to classical music when I was younger — I use blues and pop music (for inspiration) because it is where I came from,” Snowden said.

Another resident composer, Patrick David Clark of St. Louis, said he got the idea of his new work, “Ptolemy’s Carousel,” from the mathematical equations Ptolemy created so that it appeared the Earth was the center of the solar system, a belief widely accepted at the time.

These calculations reminded Clark of the calculations a composer must make to get what is wanted from the music.

“’Ptolemy’s Carousel’ is a continuous rotation of harmony, fairly pure harmony and complementary harmony, with its eight chords orbiting like the planets around the sun,” Clark said. “I would describe it as a sub-dream and mystical environment of sound.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds, whose “SEASONS: Cycle 2″ will be performed on Thursday evening, uses seasons as his muse for his composition that will be performed at the festival.

In a written description of the piece, Reynolds said he drew not only on the earthly seasons of the year — fall, winter, spring and summer — but their relationship to the seasons of life — infancy, youth, maturity and age.

“Reading through a range of poets … I searched for pertinent passages, absorbing the characteristics they associated with each of my seasons,” Reynolds wrote. “Every movement in the two Cycles refers both to a season of life, and to a season of the year. There are ‘consonant’ pairs such as infancy/spring, and more ‘dissonant’ ones including winter/youth.”

“SEASONS: Cycle 2″ is electroacoustic, a term applied to a range of music exploring and incorporating natural and electronically generated sound. The piece is part of a multi-part project he is working on with the nationally known new-music ensemble, Alarm Will Sound.

Composers are really starting to understand and develop electroacoustic music, said Stefan Freund, co-artistic director of the festival, composer and founding member of Alarm Will Sound. “I know people will take his (Reynolds’) ideas into the future.

Freund, along with the festival’s other artistic director, W. Thomas McKenney, were charged with selecting the eight resident composers from more than 100 applicants from around the world.

The six-day Mizzou New Music Summer Festival will include lectures and workshops by the resident composers, MU faculty composers Freund and McKenney, guest composers Reynolds and Anna Clyne and guest artists Susan Naruckiand Jaime Oliver.

All presentations, as well as rehearsals, are free and open to the public.

The main focus of the festival will be four concerts, which will feature 10 world premieres, all performed by Alarm Will Sound.

Snowden said it’s an amazing opportunity. “A lot of young composers dream of working with Alarm Will Sound,” he said.

Members of the ensemble arrived this week and have been rehearsing at the Sinquefield Reserve south of Jefferson City, a home of festival patrons Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield. On Wednesday, the elegantly simple architecture of the reserve’s lake house and the lush, rolling grounds around it seemed an equal match for the music being performed inside.

At first, watching the musicians get ready for rehearsal was like watching a group of high school friends tuning guitars and tapping drums in their parents’ garage. Random notes — a bowed chord, fingers dancing on a keyboard — punctuated their talking and soft laughter.

But once the rehearsal started, it was as if a switch had been thrown. The atmosphere became one of focus and cohesion; and the music, at this point “Ptolemy’s Carousel,” was soothing and flowing, one note gently running into the next.

This is the second public Mizzou New Music Summer Festival (a scaled-down trial run was held in 2009 at the Sinquefield Reserve). It is being sponsored in part by theMissouri Arts Council, the City of Columbia Office of Cultural Affairs, and theSinquefield Charitable Foundation.

The festival is part of the Mizzou New Music Initiative for the creation and performance of new music.

“Jeanne Sinquefield’s dream is to establish Missouri as a center for new music,” Freund said.

Online at: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2011/07/07/mizzou-new-music-summer-festival-continues-make-columbia-center-new-music-composition/

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Mizzou New Music Summer Festival announces selection of eight resident composers for 2011

Can the Mizzou New Music Initiative Turn Missouri Into the Next Vienna?

By Kelsey Whipple Fri., Jul. 15 2011 at 1:03 PM

Patrick David Clark uses the word kaleidoscopic three times in a single discussion about the field that has become his life: music composition. It’s a great word but an even better image, one he tacks to his most recent composition, “Ptolemy’s Carousel,” the Mizzou New Music Initiative that supports it and the summer festival where it will be performed live tomorrow in Columbia.

This last part — the ability to see a piece fully realized through a full orchestra — is rare, and it’s one of the foundations of continuing the art of composition. It’s also kaleidoscopic.

“It’s music with memory,” Clark says of his style of composing. “By memory, I mean there are references, quotations, found objects. You’ll hear bits and fragments of other pieces. It’s often a deconstruction of the memory people have of other music.”

Clark, a St. Louis native, is one of eight composers whose original work will be played tomorrow at the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts by Alarm Will Sound, a 20-person chamber orchestra known for quick and dynamic interpretations. In the field of music composition, most people think the problem is coming up with the music, but the real issue is finding a way to actually see it realized. If music programs can often be the stepchildren of public universities, composers can be the stepchildren of those programs.

For this reason, to strengthen the vitality of an art that might otherwise die, Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield and her husband, Rex Sinquefield, have contributed significantly to efforts to resuscitate it with funding for Mizzou’s New Music Initiative, the festival’s parent program. The initiative searches out and encourages musical talent in students, and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation awards the Sinquefield Composition Prize every year. This year, it went to Clark.

“Think about it like little league,” says Jeanne Sinquefield, who plays upright bass and has been involved in orchestras for 50 years. “You have hundreds of kids who play little league. They eventually get to semi-pro or maybe even pro for the lucky ones. But in order to have a pro league, you have to have little league. You have to make an effort to find and grow these composers. They’re out there, but you have to find them.”

Composers who become involved with the initiative are not limited in the scope of their pieces by adherence to a single genre. They need only create music that can be interpreted by an orchestra, though previous winners of the Sinquefield Prize have focused on choral arrangements. The applications for this year’s summer festival numbered around 120 people, eight of whom were selected to receive the attention of Alarm Will Sound and work with composition phenoms Anna Clyne and Roger Reynolds, a Pulitzer winner. Since the initiative’s beginning, it has commissioned more than 100 pieces.

“There was a period when all the great music was coming out of Vienna, this really small place in the world,” Sinquefield says. “They just happened to have a structure of patrons where you could successfully go and make this happen and be created and performed. I want Missouri to become that place for classical music today.”

Clark, who holds a degree in composition from Mizzou, is using his Sinquefield Prize to study conducting at the graduate level at the same school. He entered school as a journalism major and changed his mind too late to become a musical performance major, a natural progression that veered an eerily straight path to the composition side of the art. When asked why he made the decision – and why he continues to support it today — the 43-year-old pauses.

“I love these questions because they’re not easy to answer,” he says. “There are many levels of depth that are not touched on in popular music. We have to make sure we keep these institutions, otherwise the art will die and there will be only commercial music. We don’t ever want that to happen.”

It took Clark only six weeks to finish “Ptolemy’s Carousel,” and it will take less than an hour to hear it realized by Alarm Will Sound, a description one composer likened to driving a Ferrari. That’s not the comparison Clark uses. “I’m hoping it will be kaleidoscopic, like stained glass,” Clark says. “I hope the audience will realize that this is important, that music and art need to be explored in this way. And that’s what this festival is all about.”

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Mizzou New Music Summer Festival announces selection of eight resident composers for 2011

By Kari Besharse on July 18, 2011

One of the things about the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival that has absolutely captivated me this week is the personal role that one of the primary donors, Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield, takes in the festival. I have never experienced this type of relationship before, and it has made me think a lot about the importance of patronage from private sources. I am familiar with funding that comes through various types of grants, either via non-profit organizations or local, state, and national arts councils, but I have never before been in a situation where a single private donor is so supportive, or is such an integral part of what she is funding. As a musician, I have often felt like the people who are in the best position to support the arts do not actually feel that art (especially the creation of new art) is an integral part of our culture or is worthy of support. However, here in Columbia, Missouri, the situation is unique—they have Jeanne Sinquefield.

Jeanne, who plays string bass in several local ensembles, first became interested in the idea of creating new music through one of her cousins, who was always writing music but could not actually notate or read the music that he was creating. Jeanne began to help her cousin out by writing some of his music down, and they would play the music together. From there, she became fascinated with how people create music and began to make plans to “grow composers.” Through a partnership with the University of Missouri School of Music, Jeanne started a three-tiered plan and often uses a baseball analogy to describe it. In the little league, K-12 students participate in the Creating Original Music Project, or COMP, which encourages students to compose music and culminates in a competition and performance of the winners’ music. The pony league allows high school students to further develop their skills as composers and ends in a competition and a summer camp. Jeanne considers the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival to be the major league. This festival brings eight emerging composers to Columbia where they receive a professional performance and recording of their piece by Alarm Will Sound.

I spoke with Jeanne during intermission of the concert Friday night entitled “Mizzou’s Right to Bear New Music.” Jeanne said that she could already see the results of her three-tiered plan—the number of students involved in the COMP project has already grown and many people in central Missouri have become involved in these programs and attend new music concerts. People in Columbia have also become more interested in and engaged with new music who would not have otherwise known about it except through these programs. This is the other side of the coin; Jeanne also sees the importance of bringing new audiences into the realm of contemporary music. From what I observed at the festival, it is working. All four concerts were well attended and the community members seemed curious and supportive, approaching performers and composers alike with questions and comments. The concert Friday night featured performances by members of the University of Missouri New Music Ensemble. I commented to Jeanne on how well the students were playing, and it turns out that Jeanne plays a big role in this as well. She supports five graduate assistantships for the new music ensemble.

From the very beginning of the festival, I was blown away by Jeanne’s generosity. In my first post, I mentioned that she invited us to her estate for dinner on the first night of the festival. She had also already been hosting Alarm Will Sound during the previous week, allowing them to use her lake house as a rehearsal space. In addition, Jeanne hosts artists for residencies and presents other concerts at her home. So, for me, it’s not just the fact that the Sinquefields donated the money to start the programs involved in the Mizzou New Music Initiative, it’s that she has such a personal relationship with the music-making she is supporting. Jeanne was at all of the concerts, and she is exuberant about her plans to transform Columbia into a “Mecca for new music.”

For more information about Jeanne Sinquefield and her involvement in the Mizzou New Music Initiative as well as her other philanthropic activities, visit the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation website.

From NewMusicBox, online at: http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/mizzou-new-music-summer-festival-the-importance-of-patronage/

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Mizzou New Music Summer Festival announces selection of eight resident composers for 2011

Branson grad composing musical career

Posted: Tuesday, June 21, 2011

By Tyler Francke |

Steven Snowden, far right, leads a coaching session with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in San Francisco, Calif., as they prepare a piece written by Snowden for a West Coast tour.

Growing up in Hollister, and later near Walnut Shade, young Steven Snowden had no college aspirations and expected he would find his career in construction, like his father and many other men in his family had before him.

Then, his sophomore year, he joined the Branson High School Concert Band, where he started learning the French horn.

“I was really terrible,” Snowden said with a laugh. “But I kept practicing, and I got better and better.”

He said his improvement was due in no small part to the dedication of then-band director Eric Matzat and choir director Bob Abbott, who recently retired.

“They were very supportive, encouraging and also very good at what they do,” Snowden said. “It proves how influential your teachers can be. I became so excited about music that I wanted to do something with it.”

What he did was enroll in Missouri State University in the Music Department, graduating in 2005 with a Bachelor of Music in composition. He said he began his education in performance, but changed his mind when he tried writing music for the first time.

“When I started composing, it was like a light bulb for me,” he said. “It was really exciting. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Snowden continued his education, earning his Master’s in composition at the University of Colorado and beginning the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the University of Texas at Austin, which he hopes to complete in three more semesters.

At the same time, however, Snowden also embarked on his career in musical composition. He said he is a bit of a late bloomer in a field where many composers begin at the age of 7 or 8, which has been both a difficulty and a blessing.

“Because I got started kind of late, every time I write music, it’s really different,” he said. “I feel like I’m reinventing the wheel to a certain extent.”

But he’s also found that he  likes “being all over the place.”

“Music can express such a wide variety of things, and I want to explore a lot of those,” Snowden said. “I like writing all different kinds of music for different ensembles.”

While Snowden has received awards and fellowships from across the country, one of the most prestigious honors will be at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, which is being held in Columbia, just a few hours north of the town his family still calls home.

Snowden is one of eight composers selected in a nationwide search to produce a new work that will be played by Alarm Will Sound, a highly acclaimed music ensemble.

“It’s a pretty amazing opportunity. They’re one of the best-known concert music groups out there,” Snowden said. “They’re all top-of-the-line musicians.”

Snowden’s composition for the festival will be as unique as his background is in the composing world. His inspiration for the piece is the 1969 Led Zeppelin hit, “Dazed and Confused.”

“I didn’t grow up listening to classical music,” Snowden said. “I grew up listening to classic rock when I was helping my dad out at construction sites.”

Wherever Snowden’s career takes him, he said he will bring the Ozarks with him.

“When I started composing, I realized more and more that where I come from is a major part of the music I write,” he said. “There is a rich musical heritage in the Ozarks that I’m really trying to embrace. And being from that area is something I’m really proud of.”

Online at: http://bransontrilakesnews.com/entertainment/article_a0cc25a2-9c4c-11e0-a8b0-001cc4c002e0.html

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Young Area Composer Liza White Chosen for Mizzou New Music Summer Festival Gets National Media Coverage

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Conducting and composing

For Patrick Clark, winning the 2011 Sinquefield Composition Prize led to two big boosts for his musical career: the chance to compose an original score for the University Philharmonic and to conduct the orchestral performance.

Since 2006, the Sinquefield Composition Prize has selected an MU student to write a piece that is performed at the annual Chancellor’s Concert. Typically, the winner, who receives a scholarship and cash prize, works with the ensemble’s conductor. But because Clark, BM ’91, is a graduate student in orchestral conducting, he was asked to lead the ensemble’s performance. The dual roles led to unique experiences and challenges for Clark.

“I found out it might be easier to conduct someone else’s piece rather than your own,” Clark says. “During rehearsal, I was much less likely to address the orchestra if they needed to play with more accuracy. Instead, I went home and looked at the score to make sure I had written it correctly.”

Clark began writing the piece in late October 2010, when he learned that he had won the competition. He spent winter break composing from morning to night — though he says he didn’t mind.

“As long as I could make sure my electricity bill is paid, all I’d do is write music,” he says. “I’ve written one other full orchestra piece, but it always feels like the first time. Everything you think you know seems to go away in a cloud.”

In late January 2011, Clark finished his nine-minute piece, which was inspired by Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. He picked out themes from the late Russian composer’s work and interpreted them using his own contemporary American style. Clark’s piece debuted at the Chancellor’s Concert in March 2011 and a professional recording was made in April 2011.

This summer, Clark will continue honing his dual skill set as a resident composer for the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, July 11–16. Visit newmusicsummerfestival.missouri.edu for a schedule of events.

Online at: http://mizzoumag.missouri.edu/2011-Summer/columns/sinquefield/index.php

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Published: Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 8:00 AM

By Kathryn Roy

2002 Longmeadow High School graduate Liza White has been selected as one of eight resident composers for the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival.

A 2002 Longmeadow High School graduate is making a name for herself in the music world.

Liza White, who plans to complete her doctorate studies in music composition at Northwestern University in the fall, has been selected as one of eight resident composers for the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, put on by the University of Missouri School of Music and the Mizzou New Music Initiative, in July.

White, along with the other resident composers, will travel to Columbia for the festival, which runs July 11 through July 16. There, she’ll take part in a series of public concerts featuring her own music being performed, as well as music from other contemporary creators.

She will also have the opportunity to participate in workshops, master classes and other events.

Resident composers will be able to work with guest composers Roger Reynolds, winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for music composition, and Anna Clyne, who serves as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
White’s music will be performed by the music group, Alarm Will Sound.

White said she is thrilled she was selected for the festival. “It’s a really fantastic group, and I’m excited to get to work with them,” she said. “It’s what young composers do to try to get out there and get their work performed,” she said of applying for such opportunities.

Under the application guidelines, White wrote a musical piece involving all of the 16 members of the ensemble.

The piece had to be less than eight minutes long.

White said she was also given information about where percussion instruments would be placed on the stage, so that one musician wasn’t expected to be running from one side of the stage to the other.

“I definitely took into account what I know about them (Alarm Will Sound),” she said. “I listened to their past performances and watched videos on YouTube. They’re really good about putting on a good show.” White said the ensemble also does some choreography in their performances, so she wrote some into her piece.

Alarm Will Sound plays arrangements of popular music, which is something White enjoys writing. “My music is very much influenced by pop music, and this piece is no exception,” she said.

A former trombonist who dabbles in voice and guitar, White focuses on composing these days, and hopes to eventually land a professorship in music composition.

“For me, the main reason to do things like this is to meet musicians and to work with people on a really personal level,” she said.

Jeanne Sinquefield of the Sinquefield Foundation, which funds the Mizzou New Music Initiative, said the festival attracted 120 applicants from around the globe.

She said the musicians in Alarm Will Sound are extremely talented, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for up and coming young composers to work with them. “

They have played together for so long that they’re able to play very complex new music,” Sinquefield said. “

What we offer (the resident composers) is to come for a week and actually work with the group, work with other composers and master composers and you get a recording. It’s a lot of fun.”

Sinquefield said the Initiative is one way to bring about new music, while many people are convinced that older pieces are the only thing worth listening to.

“Since our program started, there have been 100 pieces written for our program,” she said.

White said she is indebted to the music department at Longmeadow High School for giving her her start. “I was very lucky to have that,” she said.

“While I was a good student, it was music that kept me wanting to go to school. I hope they can keep the program as excellent as it’s been.”

For more information on White, visit www.lizawhitemusic.com.

A related link you can also visit is The Republican’s 2011 Talented Teens’ blog http://blog.masslive.com/talentedteens

In print and online at: http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2011/06/area_composer_chosen_for_festival.html

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Mizzou New Music Summer Festival announces selection of eight resident composers for 2011