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Music Alive Composers Institute, Day 1

Today was Day 1 of our 2-day Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra Music Alive Composers Institute! I gave three presentations today for our twelve student composers (who came from 8 different universities) on strategies for composing, building an online presence, and music business basics. These presentations occurred over the course of the afternoon at the iHotel in Champaign.

Tomorrow, the composers will have workshops in writing for harp and percussion within an orchestral setting, featuring CUSO harpist Molly Madden, CUSO percussionist Ricardo Flores, and CUSO timpanist William Moersch. We will also have a luncheon discussion with Maestro Stephen Alltop on how to navigate the composer-conductor relationship. The Composers Institute culminates with a reading session of works by student composers Stephen Caldwell, Hunter Chang, and Brian Hinkley with Maestro Alltop the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. The reading session is at 1:00 – 3:30 PM CST at the iHotel in the Illinois Ballroom, and is open to the public. We are also live streaming the event at: https://www.facebook.com/CUSymphonyOrch/

Our composer participants did great today, and I’m very excited for tomorrow!! Thank you New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras for funding these residence activities.