The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh music department is playing host to the 2018 Wisconsin Alliance for Composers New Music Festival on Saturday, March 3, and will present two free concerts open to the public.
A concert at 5:30 p.m. will feature winning elementary, middle school, high school and undergraduate compositions from a recent statewide composition competition. Among the performers will be UW Oshkosh senior Ashton Boyd, who has a double major in music industry and music composition.
A concert beginning at 7:30 p.m. will include works by Wisconsin Alliance for Composers members, including UWO music faculty members Ed Martin and John Mayrose. Music will be performed by faculty members Kirstin Ihde and Drew Whiting, as well as student performers and guest performers brought in by composers from around the region.
“These concerts are a great opportunity for audiences to hear music that has never been performed before and music written by contemporary composers throughout the region,” said Mayrose, associate professor of music composition/theory at UW Oshkosh.
The concerts will showcase great new musical works created by young composers. The festival is the second consecutive hosted at UW Oshkosh, since the event was revived in 2017.
“Very few opportunities like this exist for pre-college student composers to have their works performed in concerts,” added Mayrose, organizer of the event with Martin.
The event will take place in the UW Oshkosh Music Hall, 1001 Elmwood Ave.
The Wisconsin Alliance for Composers is a nonprofit Wisconsin corporation founded in 1984 to encourage and support the composition and performance of new music by Wisconsin composers.
New Music Winners
Elementary school (K-8)
- First place: Alex Hobbs, Shapiro STEM Academy, Pittsville
Middle school
- First place: Nora Otte, homeschooled, Van Dyne
- Honorable mention: Angelina Vu, Carl Traeger Middle School, Oshkosh
High School
- First place: Sylvia Seibel, homeschooled, Eldorado
- Honorable mention: Lydia Dyk, Fond du Lac Christian School, Fond du Lac
- Honorable mention: Madelyn Dyk, Fond du Lac Christian School, Fond du Lac
Undergraduate
- First place: Daniel Whitworth, Lawrence University
- Honorable mention: Ashton Boyd, UW Oshkosh
- Honorable mention: Madeline Moran, Lawrence University
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