Stefan Freund: MTNA-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year

A faculty member in the School of Music has won a distinguished national award in music composition with a piece that was inspired by the virtuosity of a fellow faculty member and a student. The Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) announced in late January 2005 that its judges had selected Stefan Freund’s original composition Screams and Grooves as the top work among the 24 pieces that had advanced to the national competition.

Freund, a visiting assistant professor in composition and music theory, receives a title—2004 MTNA-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year—and a $3,000 stipend for his achievement. The MU professor and student who inspired the 11-minute piece for saxophone and piano will perform the work April 3 in Seattle, Wash., at the association’s national meeting. Freund wrote the piece to suit the virtuosity of the two performers, visiting assistant professor of saxophone Leo Saguiguit and Patrick Dell, a senior majoring in piano and composition.

"I wanted to take advantage of the virtuosity of the players, and this does," Freund says.

Screams and Grooves integrates a combination of styles—jazz, pop and rock—in two distinct sections. Screams is a disjunct movement that becomes a dialogue between the saxophone and piano as the saxophone plays in altissimo, an ultra-high range that is above the key range of the instrument; Grooves displays a more flowing style with the two instruments playing together. In addition to the notation, an intricate mixed meter adds another level of difficulty to the composition. Still, Freund figured his chosen performers could handle it.

As Freund wrote Screams and Grooves, he would ask Saguiguit to come over to his house to try the music. "Leo would say something was impossible," Freund says, "but a few minutes later he’d have it figured out." Freund has known Saguiguit since high school and for years has admired his skill on the saxophone. Likewise, Freund considers Dell an "incredible talent."

"They deserve a lot of credit," he says. "Their performance impressed the judges."

Freund attended a performance of the work in Columbia for the Women’s Symphony League, where he could observe the connection the music was making with the audience. "It’s the greatest feeling in the world getting this music realized," he says. "It’s nice to like your own music, but it adds sugar when other people do, too."

Freund is the second MU professor to win the MTNA Distinguished Composer Award. Professor Tom McKenney won the award in 1970 with his composition Three Miniatures for Piano.

"I am pleased that Stefan was declared the winner," McKenney says. "He is a talented young man, not only as a gifted composer, but as a fine cellist as well. I am proud to have him as a colleague."

Freund teaches composition, ear training and an alternating set of courses in band arranging, choral arranging and orchestration. He came to Mizzou in fall 2003 from the Eastman School of Music, where he taught for a year after receiving a doctoral degree in composition and cello.

Cello is Freund’s principal instrument. He doesn’t play the saxophone. Although he does play the piano, Freund says he’s no expert; he quit lessons during high school.

Freund is the recipient of two William Schuman Prizes and the Boudleaux Bryant Prize from BMI, five ASCAP Morton Gould Grants, six ASCAP Standard Awards, a Music Merit Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the Howard Hanson Prize. He is principal cellist of Alarm Will Sound and serves on its production board.

He has received commissions from the Phoenix Symphony, the New York Youth Symphony, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and, most recently, from the Lincoln Center for a debut performance by Alarm Will Sound for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Freund’s music has been performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery of Art and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

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Links:

Stefan Freund
School of Music

Alarm Will Sound
Music Teachers National Association

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