KBIA

$1 Million Gift for MU Music Department COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - A $1 million gift will expand opportunities for music at MU. Yesterday, Chancellor Brady Deaton announced that Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield's donation will go towards scholarships for student composers among other things. KBIA's Erika Croonenberghs has more.


Jeanne Sinquefield says she and her husband want to make Mizzou a Mecca for music composition by attracting student composers to the university.

"You gotta get the composers here. Right now if you're a young composers, a undergraduate composer I don't think there is any full ride, or if there is its so rare, to a major music program in the U.S. Mizzou is going to have 8 full ride undergraduate composers."

In honor of Jeanne Sinquefield, the MU Faculty Brass Quintet performed a musical tribute, titled "Fanfare for Jeanne". The Sinquefields founded the Creating Original Music Project four years ago at MU. It encourages student composers to create new music. The program includes a competition for MU student composers, a competition for kindergarten through 12th grade composers and a summer camp for high school composers. Chancellor Brady Deaton says their donation will increase emphasis on musical composition.

"We are beginning today a new pathway to discovery. In which young composers will look deep inside themselves at their relationships with the broader world and create the music of the future."

The donation will also fund scholarships for a new ensemble to play the composers music and bring in more professors to work with the student composers.
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