Art & Design Exhibition 

 
Displays located in the Columbia Art League and Missouri Theatre lobby. 

Concessions are available in the Missouri Theatre lobby.

School of Visual Studies

School of Visual Studies displays selected and installed by Madeleine LeMieux, Gallery Director.

Welcome

 
Cooper Drury
Dean of the College of Arts and Science

THEATRE & PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Introduction by Sophie Campos
Department of Theatre & Performance Studies student

Selections from “Into the Woods”
Joy Powell, Director
Trent Rash, Music Direction
Sean Jeanicke, Choreography
Marc W. Vital II, Costume Design
Mimi Hedges, Scenic and Props Design
Vincente Williams, Lighting Design
Written by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

“On the Steps of the Palace”
featuring Layla Friend as Cinderella

“It Takes Two”
featuring Sophie Campos as the Baker’s Wife and
Luca Freccia as the Baker

“To Be or Not to Be” from “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare
featuring William Morris
Irene Ryan semi-finalist, American College Theatre Festival

“Container of Sharks!” by Don Zolidis
featuring Sophie Campos

“Giants in the Sky”
featuring Chance McKim as Jack

“Children Will Listen”
featuring Ryan Deshyla Jordan as the Witch

School of Visual Studies

 
Chancellor’s Arts Showcase animation by Chloee Rudolph

Introduction by Alisan Hoffman
School of Visual Studies student

Video Presentation
Ruiqi Zhang, Director
“Dungeon Delver” by John Hagler
“Nightlight” by Megan Jansen
“Wine and Revelry” by Nina LaMar
“Maggie’s Adventure” by Daniel Soar, Ireland Koonce,
and David Moffett
“Dinner with a Chef” by Warren Counts
“Bagel Time” by Melissa Tran
“The Old Spot” by Emma Gomez

Architectural Studies & Interior Design

 
Introduction by Andrew Bush
Architectural Studies student

Textile & Apparel Management

 
Introduction by Sophia Eder
Textile & Apparel Management student

Intermission

School of Music

 
2026 Sinquefield Composition Prize Winner
Dean Wibe

World premiere of “Existential Vacuum”

 
by Dean Wibe
performed by the University of Missouri Wind Ensemble 
Brian Silvey, Conductor 

Program notes

The Existential Vacuum is a term coined by Austrian philosopher Victor Frankl in his 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning. This phenomenon is characterized by deep emptiness and a lack of purpose. I chose this title because it reflects the nature of the music itself. Personally, the term also evokes images of strange machines in an alternate dimension, in which “meaning” can be measured. When I compose, I view sounds as living organisms that exist within a sonic environment. In this work, I imagined that the sounds of this strange dimension became self-aware. Existential Vacuum consists of episodic sections with contrasting characters. Each section utilizes similar harmonic and motivic ideas, but these materials are manipulated in many different ways. In each section, the music gradually transforms in harmony and timbre, as if searching for a musical “meaning.” Inevitably, each musical idea reaches a climactic point of intensity, before fracturing and abandoning the search. 

Dean Wibe is a composer and cellist from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He began playing in the public school classroom and first studied cello privately with Dianne Platte and Hannah Holman. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance at the University of Iowa. Currently, Dean is pursuing a Master’s in Music Composition at the University of Missouri. His primary composition teachers are Stefan Freund and Utku Asuroglu. Dean recently completed a Master’s Degree in Cello Performance at the University of Missouri, where he studied with Eli Lara and performed with the Mizzou New Music Ensemble. As a member of the ensemble, he has worked with composers such as Marcos Balter, Viet Cuong, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Tania Léon, George Lewis, and others. Dean has composed works for the Saint Louis Symphony, HUB New Music, the Mizzou New Music Ensemble, the Mizzou Wind Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and the American Wild Ensemble.

Finale

 
University Remarks from Mun Y. Choi
Mun Y. Choi, President of the University of Missouri 

“La Chancla (2024)” by Dennis Llinas
performed by the University of Missouri Wind Ensemble
Brian A. Silvey, Conductor 

Program notes

La Chancla is Spanish for a slipper — more accurately a flip-flop. While Cubans usually say “chancleta”, Puerto Ricans refer to it as “chancla.” It is a common meme or joke among Hispanics that a mother with a chancla in her hand could get an entire room of unruly kids in line or even chase away a bear . It is the Excalibur of Hispanic mothers and grandmothers everywhere, and so I thought it would be a fun project to write a piece with this title and play between the mythical and merengue. The mythical element to La Chancla is represented by a combination of whole tone and octatonic collections. The merengue stands in stark contrast to the mythical, representing the culture through more conservative functional harmony but intense rhythmic vitality. The piece is not programmatic–just a fun collection of these styles and the interplay between them.

Dennis Llinás is a Cuban-Colombian conductor and composer. He currently is the Director of Bands at The University of Oregon where he conducts the wind ensemble, teaches graduate & undergraduate conducting, and oversees the band area. A native of Hialeah, FL, Dennis studied at Florida International University and the University of Texas. He has presented sessions at The Midwest Clinic, WASBE, TMEA (Texas), FMEA, and CBDNA. His compositions and arrangements have been widely performed with recordings by Mark Hetzler and the University of Texas at El Paso Wind Ensemble. He has had performances by the Dallas Winds, the United States Air Force Band, the United States Navy Band, USAF Band of the Golden West, Cedar Park Winds, Brooklyn Wind Symphony, and the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, to name a few. His works have been performed at prestigious venues such as The Midwest Clinic, Music for All National Concert Band Festival, Texas Music Educators Conference, and the American Bandmasters Association Conference.