UMKC Composers' Guild

10/12/2026

Please join us for three events with Welsh baritone Dr. Jeremy Huw Williams: a vocal masterclass, an evening of song, and a Composers Forum!

Dr. Williams has performed in more than sixty operatic roles and appeared at major venues and festivals worldwide, including Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms. A renowned interpreter of contemporary music, he has commissioned and premiered numerous new works. We are delighted to welcome him to UMKC during his U.S. concert tour.

🎶 VOCAL MASTERCLASS
🗓️Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | 3–4 p.m.
📍Room 334, Grant Hall

A masterclass for vocal performance students led by Dr. Jeremy Huw Williams, hosted by Professor Seokho Park.

🎶 UMKC COMPOSERS’ GUILD CONCERT NO. 2
🗓️Thursday, October 15, 2026 | 7:30 p.m.
📍Grant Recital Hall, UMKC Conservatory

Building Bridges between our Conservatory, New York and the World – Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams presents an Evening of Song

Featuring Dr. Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone, with Jiaqi Wang and Hang Qu, piano.
The program features music by Zhou Long, Victoria Bond, Jiaqi Wang, Chen Yi, Haoyu Zhao, Hilary Tann, Rodrigo Camargo, Barbara Jazwinski, Hang Qu, Wendy Griffiths, and Ben Morris.

🎶 COMPOSERS FORUM: “WRITING FOR THE VOICE”
🗓️Friday, October 16, 2026 | 1–3 p.m.
📍PAC 521, UMKC Conservatory

Dr. Williams presents a lecture on writing for the voice, with performances of four UMKC student compositions by Ziyuan Wang, Yunfei Li, Quanzhong Deng, and Aiden Levendofsky. Featuring Williams, baritone, with Jiaqi Wang and Hang Qu, piano.

Each event offers a different opportunity to listen, learn, and connect. We encourage you to join us for all three if you can, please come support our composers and performers and be part of the conversation! We are looking forward to seeing you all there!

UMKC Conservatory
UMKC Conservatory Alumni
UMKC Opera at the Conservatory

09/29/2026

Thanks to Marty Beller for the excellent lecture at the UMKC Conservatory on 09/29/2026! ❤️❤️❤️

It was an exciting and inspiring day filled with great ideas, artistic personality, and experiences from professional perspectives on the careers of composition, and film music. We are truly grateful for his generosity in sharing his experience and insights with us!

Many thanks to our composition faculty for their support, and to University of Missouri-Kansas City for making this wonderful event possible!

Thanks for Professor Ben Morris, and Yilin Wang who took our group photos, and supported our event!

UMKC Composers' Guild
UMKC Conservatory Alumni
UMKC Conservatory

09/27/2026

Congratulations, Yingting!

Congratulations to DMA composition student, Yingting Liu, who has received the 2026 PatsyLu Prize in the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Search for New Music Competition for her work “Lin Chong’s Night Escape!”

The annual IAWM Search for New Music Competition recognizes the accomplishments of IAWM member composers and supports the organization’s mission to increase awareness of women’s contributions to music. The competition also serves as a resource for performers and presenters around the world seeking new works for concert programming. The PatsyLu Prize specifically recognizes new music by underrepresented women composers.

“Lin Chong’s Night Escape” is a work for piano, fixed media, and video inspired by Lin Chong, a tragic character from the Chinese classic, Water Margin. The piece follows four stages of his story: Prologue, Wrath, Revenge, and Escape. Rather than retelling the story directly, Liu reimagines it through a combination of cyberpunk textures, 8-bit arcade sounds, Chinese operatic percussion, techno, Chiptune, and hip-hop influences.

The work also connects to Liu’s childhood memories of playing arcade games based on legendary Chinese heroes. These memories helped shape the piece’s energetic, theatrical, and game-like sound world while carrying the darker emotional story of Lin Chong underneath.

Well done, !


https://iawm.org/2026-search-for-new-music-winners/

09/26/2026

Congratulations to everyone on a wonderful concert last night! 🎉

A huge thank you to all of our composers, performers, organizers, and everyone who came out to support us and share the evening together.

We were especially excited to celebrate the premieres of three new works:

The Finger Pointing at the Moon — Haoyu Zhao
Scarlet Tanager — Colin Monaghan
Moon and Star — Yilin Wang

Congratulations again to everyone involved, and thank you for making the night so special! ✨🎶

09/24/2026

We'd love to invite you all to TWO unique lecture events on Tuesday 9/29 with Marty Beller, the drummer for the band They Might Be Giants.

The two events on Tuesday 9/29 are as follows:

-11-11:50am in PAC521 - composing talk for Composition I class

-1:30-4:00pm in Grant Recital Hall - Lecture on Career and Entrepreneurship

Marty Beller, Grammy Award–winning composer and longtime drummer for the iconic alt-rock band, They Might Be Giants, brings students inside the world of a professional musician whose career moves seamlessly between recording, touring, and scoring for the screen – on stage, in the studio, and in the creative spaces where projects come to life. These are immersive, interactive lectures inside the work of a recording, touring, and composing career.

You are all encouraged to attend both events, and please invite your friends! This is a unique chance to learn from the perspective of an experienced and diverse composer in the media scoring and popular music landscape… don’t miss it!

09/23/2026

Congratulations, Yilin! Bravo!

Congratulations to first-year UMKC DMA composition student Yilin Wang who has received the 2026 Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux Award at Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP) for her electroacoustic work Echo of Gamelan!

Before coming to UMKC, completed her MMus in Composition with a specialization in Music Cognition at Western University in Canada. Organized by the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, JTTP supports new work by young and emerging electroacoustic artists from or living in Canada. The 2026 awards were selected by an international jury.

Echo of Gamelan brings together Wang’s interests in electroacoustic music, spatial sound, and how we listen. The piece grew from her improvisations on gamelan instruments, which she recorded and transformed using a custom Ambisonic patch she built in Max/MSP. Field recordings of water and birds add another layer to its shifting sound world. Wang also created a binaural version of the piece so listeners can experience its spatial movement online through headphones. The work brings together her background in composition and music technology.

Check out the other award recipients here: https://www.jttp.ca/2026/

.sonus

09/16/2026

🕖 Sep 25, 2026 at 7:00pm - 8:30pm
📍White Recital Hall in UMKC James C. Olson Performing Arts Center

Hi friends!

We hope you will join us in celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival and supporting our "Moonlight Chamber Concert"!

The concert features a diverse repertoire spanning a wide range of musical styles and traditions, including Eight Chinese Folk Songs by Prof. Zhou Long, The Shape of Water by Yunfei Li, and Moonlight by Ludwig van Beethoven.

We are also excited to present the premieres of The Finger Pointing at the Moon(指月)by Haoyu Zhao, Moon and Star by Yilin Wang, and Scarlet Tanager by Colin Monaghan.

Featured Performers and Ensembles: Haoyu Zhao,shakuhachi and dizi; Yu-Han Sun, piano; Lei Zhou,counter-tenor, Aaron Liu, piano; Ivy Sun, dancer; Jia Wei, dance director; Huihui Lou, the soprano; UMKC Graduate Fellowship String Quartet; Stateline Saxophone Quartet; and Cameratta Occhio dal’ Elephante (COdE) Viols.

Many thanks to all the wonderful performers for supporting this concert, and especially thanks for the great support from the International Chamber and Vocal Music Institute!

UMKC Composers' Guild
UMKC Conservatory Alumni
UMKC Conservatory

09/12/2026

Thanks to Dr. Vincent Ho for the excellent lecture at the UMKC Composers Forum on 09/11/2026! ❤️❤️❤️

It was an exciting and inspiring afternoon filled with great ideas, and experiences from professional perspectives on the careers of composition. We are truly grateful for his generosity in sharing his experience and insights with us!

Many thanks to our composition faculty for their support, and to University of Missouri-Kansas City for making this wonderful event possible!

Thanks for Professor Chen Yi, and Yijing Fu who took our group photos, and supported our event!

UMKC Composers' Guild
UMKC Conservatory Alumni
UMKC Conservatory

09/08/2026

🕐 1:00 PM–3:00 PM on Sep 11 |📍 UMKC, PAC, Room 521

Dear Composers,

UMKC Composers Forum is thrilled to invite you to a composition lecture given by Vincent Ho, Artistic Director of Land’s End Ensemble;

Thank you for your great support of new music in our community!

UMKC Conservatory
UMKC Composers' Guild

09/05/2026

Thank you to Chancellor's Distinguished Professor Lei Liang from University of California San Diego for the excellent lecture at the UMKC Composers Forum on 09/04/2026! ❤️❤️❤️

It was an exciting and inspiring afternoon filled with “Useful Knowledge of Music”, exchange, ideas and new perspectives on composition, and cross disciplinary approach from music to oceanology. We are truly grateful for his generosity in sharing his experience and insights with us!

Many thanks to our composition faculty for their support, and to University of Missouri-Kansas City for making this wonderful event possible!

Thanks for史迎曦 / Michael Shi (photographer) who took our group photo, and supported our event!

UMKC Composers' Guild
UMKC Conservatory Alumni
UMKC Conservatory