Stefan Freund, Artistic Director

Stefan Freund received a BM with High Distinction from the Indiana University School of Music and an MM and a DMA from the Eastman School of Music.  His primary composition teachers included Pulitzer Prize winners Christopher Rouse and Joseph Schwantner as well as Augusta Read Thomas, Frederick Fox, and Don Freund, his father.  He studied cello with Steven Doane, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Peter Spurbeck, among others.  He is presently Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri.  Previously he was Assistant Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music.

Freund is the recipient of two William Schuman Prizes and the Boudleaux Bryant Prize from BMI, five ASCAP Morton Gould Grants, twelve ASCAP Plus Awards, a Music Merit Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the Howard Hanson Prize.  He was selected as the 2004 Music Teachers National Association-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year.  In 2006 and 2013 he was awarded Outstanding Faculty Research and Creative Activity Awards from MU.  Freund has received commissions from the New Spectrum Foundation, the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Youth Symphony, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Verdehr Trio, Town Hall Seattle, Sheldon Concert Hall, and SCI/ASCAP.  His music has been performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and the Kennedy Center as well as by ensembles such as the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony.  International performances include the Berliner Philharmonie, the Moscow International Performing Arts Center, Glinka Hall (St. Petersburg), Queen's Hall (Copenhagen), the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, and concert halls in seven other European countries, Canada, and Mexico.  His works have been recorded on the Albany, Innova, Crystal, and Centaur labels.

Active as a performer, conductor, and producer of new music, Freund is the founding cellist of the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound.  His cello performances include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Met Museum, Merkin Hall, Millennium Park, Disney Hall, the Barbican (UK), the Hermitage Theatre (RU), the Muzikgebouw (ND), the World Financial Center, Culture Station Seoul (Korea), and the Beijing Modern Music Festival.  He has recorded on the Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Tzadik, and I Virtuosi labels as well as Sweetspot Music DVD.  In addition, Freund is the Artistic Director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the Music Director of the Columbia Civic Orchestra.

Andrea Luque Káram, Managing Director

Dr. Andrea Luque Karam is a professional musician and arts manager, an entrepreneurial leader, and advocate for diversifying music practices. She holds a bachelor’s degree in piano and minor in Arts and Cultural Management, a MM in Music Composition, and a Ph.D in Arts Administration, Education, and Policy from The Ohio State University. Andrea is equally appreciative of classical, contemporary, and popular music genres, and these are all important to her artistic voice. 

Andrea’s passion for music is tied to her intentions of making music experiences and education more accessible and appealing. She has presented new music concerts in Mexico and the United States, and she founded a summer music school in the state of Sonora to bring to her hometown community an integrated music curriculum that had never been offered to young ages in the area.

At the end of her master’s degree, Andrea was awarded theResearch and Creativity Award from Northern Arizona University for her thesis, an orchestral work. In 2020 shereceived a cross-disciplinary grant through The Ohio State University’s Global Arts and Humanities organization for a research project involving access to music professionalization in Mexico. She was awarded a University Fellowship at OSU for her doctoral studies and was selected as a recipient of the Columbus Foundation Fellowship in the summer of 2020.