The annual Composition Festival brings internationally acclaimed composers to the campus of Missouri State University to inspire, teach, and interact with students from across the music department and the larger campus community. These interactions include concerts and rehearsals of the guest composer’s works by department ensembles, students, faculty, and guest performers; performances of student and faculty compositions; presentations to classes and to the general public; one-on-one lessons with composition majors; and master classes with small groups of students. Events are free and open to the public.
Schedule of events
Sunday, March 3
Concert I – 7:30 p.m. Ellis Recital Hall 217b
Guest artist Elizabeth Moak performing piano music by Judith Lang Zaimont
Monday, March 4
Concert II – 7:30 p.m. Ellis Recital Hall 217b
Music of Michael Murray and MSU student composers performed by MSU students
Tuesday, March 5
Presentation I – 1-2:45 p.m. Ellis Hall 305
Hanna Kulenty discusses her music
Concert III – 7:30 p.m. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts
Music of Hanna Kulenty, John Prescott, Wang Yi, Damijan Močnik, and Stephen Paulus performed by the Missouri State University Symphony Orchestra and Concert Chorale conducted by Robert Quebbeman and Guy Webb
Wednesday, March 6
Concert IV – 7:30 p.m. Ellis Recital Hall 217b
Music of Hanna Kulenty, Michael Murray, and MSU student composers performed by Jeremy Chesman, David Hays, Peter Collins, and MSU students
Guest performers
Hanna Kulenty
Hanna Kulenty is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music living both in Warsaw (Poland) and in Arnhem (The Netherlands). The recipient of numerous commissions and scholarships, she has worked as a freelance composer since 1989. Kulenty has composed 2 operas, 12 works for large orchestra and more than 60 other pieces. In 1990 she was guest composer at DAAD in Berlin. In 1999/2000 she was composer-in-residence with Het Gelders Orkest in The Netherlands. She lectured at the Other Minds 10 festival (San Francisco) and at Soundstreams Canada in 2005. In that same year she was guest professor at the Conservatory of Zwolle. In 2007 she was guest professor at the ESMuC, Music Academy in Barcelona.
Kulenty writes for solo instruments, chamber groups, large orchestras, opera, television plays and film. Her compositions have been premiered during festivals throughout the world, including Huddersfield Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Münchener Biennale, Warsaw Autumn, Musica Polonica Nova and the Netherlands Music Days. Her numerous orchestral pieces have been performed by symphony orchestras in Holland, Denmark, Poland and Germany, conducted by David Porcelijn, Antoni Wit, Peter Hirsch, Peter Eötvös, Ingo Metzmacher, Renato Rivolta and Ronald Zollman. Recently she was commissioned by Kronos Quartet, for whom she wrote her 4th and 5th string quartets.
Elizabeth Moak
Noted for her “sensitivity” and “generous imagination” (La Suisse, Geneva, Switzerland), pianist Elizabeth Moak has performed throughout the United States (including national television and radio) and internationally. Winner of the Mu Phi Epsilon International Competition and several national competitions including the National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Collegiate Competition, Elizabeth Moak holds degrees from the Conservatoire de Musique de Neuchâtel (Switzerland) and the Peabody Conservatory (studies with Leon Fleisher, Lillian Freundlich, Julian Martin, and Ann Schein).
Critics have recently given commendatory attention to Moak’s 2012 debut solo recording Art Fire Soul: Piano Music of Judith Lang Zaimont, recorded at the request of and under the guidance of the composer, and cited Moak’s “brio, assurance, and remarkable talent” (ResMusica, France) as well as her “musicianship and panache” (Classical Net). Art Fire Soul was selected for American Record Guide’s “Critics’ Choice 2012” (Jan./Feb. 2013).