Stefan Freund, Artistic Director MNMI

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.

Photo Credit: Dale Lloyd

Tiffany Skidmore, Managing Director MNMI

Tiffany M. Skidmore is an American composer and performer based in Columbia, Missouri, where she is currently Associate Director of the Mizzou New Music Initiative. She has held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Virginia Tech, and the University at Buffalo (SUNY), where from 2023-2024, she held the Birge Cary Chair in Music Composition. Most recently, she was a Visiting Professor at McGill University, in residence at CIRMMT (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). She is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and Co-Artistic Director of the Twin Cities-based 113 Composers Collective, an organization that produces the Twin Cities New Music Festival, as well as concerts and guest artist residencies throughout the world.

Dr. Skidmore has received numerous awards for her work from organizations such as the Schubert Club, the Jerome Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Rimon, and Opus7. She was a 2017 John Duffy Institute for New Opera Fellow, a 2018 McKnight Composer Fellow, and the 2018-2019 Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble Composer-in-Residence. Her chamber, choral, and orchestral work has been interpreted by acclaimed experimental music specialists throughout the United States and Europe, including Kyle Hutchins, Tiffany Du Mouchelle, Talea, TAK, loadbang, andPlay, Bent Duo, Fonema Consort, Ensemble Dal Niente, Duo Gelland, and many others. Her work has been featured in national and international festivals, including the US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, the International Clarinet Association Festival, the MN Made Festival, the Shockingly Modern Saxophone Festival, the Virginia Tech New Music + Technology Festival, the New York City Electronic Music Festival, the OpenAir Festival (Sweden), the Open Days Festival (Denmark), and the World Saxophone Congress (Gran Canaria), among others. She is on the composition faculty of the Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival, the Sofia Symphonic Summit, and the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival.

Dr. Skidmore holds degrees in Music Composition and Vocal Performance from Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University, and the University of Minnesota, where she studied with James Dillon and theorist Michael Cherlin, followed by post-doctoral studies with Chaya Czernowin.

As a performer, Skidmore has sung professionally with the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Opera companies, Spokane Symphony Chorale, the Minnesota Chorale, the Contemporary Music Workshop, Hymnos Vocal Ensemble, the Gregorian Singers, the 113 Composers Collective, and as a free-lance artist, primarily performing early and experimental music.

Alan Pierson, Artistic Director Alarm Will Sound

Alan Pierson has been praised as "a dynamic conductor and musical visionary" by The New York Times, a "conductor of monstrous skill" by Newsday, "gifted and electrifying" by the Boston Globe, and "one of the most exciting figures in new music today" by Fanfare. He is the Artistic Director and conductor of the acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound, which has been called "the future of classical music" by The New York Times and "a sensational force" with "powerful ideas about how to renovate the concert experience" by The New Yorker.  Mr. Pierson served as the Artistic Director and conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The New York Times called Pierson’s leadership at the Philharmonic "truly inspiring," and the New Yorker's Alex Ross described it as “remarkably innovative, perhaps even revolutionary.” 

As a guest conductor, Pierson has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, L.A. Opera, Nationaltheater Mannheim, the London Sinfonietta, the Steve Reich Ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the New World Symphony, and the Silk Road Project, among other ensembles. He is co-director of the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has been a visiting faculty conductor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. 

Pierson regularly collaborates with major composers and performers, including Yo Yo Ma, Steve Reich, Dawn Upshaw, Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, David T. Little, Augusta Read Thomas, David Lang, Donnacha Dennehy, La Monte Young, Tyshawn Sorey, and choreographers John Heginbotham, Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan and Elliot Feld. He has spearheaded critically acclaimed cross-genre collaborations with artists like Yasiin Bey, Erykah Badu, and Medeski Martin and Wood. 

Pierson is passionate about creating theatricalized performance experiences that use music, theater, and multimedia to connect listeners more deeply to great music. 

Beyond his work in the concert hall, Pierson is an avid recording producer and artist, having released 30 albums on Nonesuch Records, Sony Classical, Cantaloupe Music, Oehms Classics, and Sweetspot DVD. 

Mr. Pierson received bachelor degrees in physics and music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in conducting from the Eastman School of Music. In 2022, he received the Eastman School of Music Centennial Award.

Photo Credit: Nir Arieli