By Nicole Lyons,
January 31, 2025
The Division of Music at the ŷƵ (UCM) School of Visual and Performing Arts
announces upcoming events for the Spring 2025 season. Exciting highlights this season
include the internationally acclaimed MOXsonic Festival and the President's Gala,
a showcase of inspiring student work.
The season opens with “Brahms and Beyond” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4 in Hart Recital
Hall, featuring UCM Clarinet Professor Elisabeth Stimpert, Piano Professor Mia Kim,
Music Technology and Composition Professor Jeff Kaiser and Saxophone Instructor Aislinn
Jakary. The 47th annual UCM Jazz Festival on Feb. 22, student degree recitals, and
the Quistorff Opera Aria competition will round out February events.
The Missouri Experimental Sonic Arts Festival (MOXsonic) returns for its sixth year
on March 19-21 at venues throughout UCM’s Warrensburg campus. The festival features
concerts, research presentations, workshops, installations and conversations, bringing
a global following of academic and independent artists to UCM to explore sonic possibilities
and community. For more information, visit .
UCM Choirs, which celebrated an international tour and its selection to perform as the featured
ensemble at the Missouri Music Educators Association (MMEA) State Conference in January,
will present the annual Masterworks Concert on Tuesday, March 4. The ensembles will
perform John Rutter’s moving “Requiem,” written in 1985 on Latin and English texts.
The Claude T. Smith Band Festival, taking place all day on Monday, March 31, welcomes
Ukrainian-Australian composer Catherine Likhuta to Warrensburg as its composer-in-residence.
UCM’s Wind Ensemble and select students from regional high school bands will present
their festival finale concert at 7 p.m. in Hendricks Hall. A dynamic Percussion Studio
Recital and more student degree recitals will bring March to a close.
The UCM Faculty-Student Chamber Ensemble returns in April for its second year with
a family concert featuring Camille Saint-Saens’s beloved “Carnival of the Animals,”
narrated by UCM Music Theory Professor John Check and Music History Professor Allison
Robbins. The April calendar also includes the ever-popular Spring Clarinet Studio
Recital, a percussion faculty recital by Ian McClaflin, and guest artist percussion
and jazz recitals by Kevin Jones and Arthur Lipner.
The season highlight is the 2025 President’s Gala, which will take place Tuesday, April 22 at the in Kansas City. With its theme of “Illumination,” the gala will showcase students’
work from the School of Visual and Performing Arts’ three areas of study — Music,
Art and Design, and Theatre and Dance — separately and in unison throughout the performance.
The gala will feature guest artist Jan Kraybill, one of Kansas City’s most accomplished
performers and Grammy-nominated conservator of the Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant pipe
organ in Helzberg Hall. Kraybill will perform several works with UCM students and
faculty on this internationally renowned instrument.
For more information about the gala and to learn how to become a sponsor of the arts
at UCM, visit ucmo.edu/gala.
All Music events are free and open to the public except for the Gala, which requires
a ticket. To learn more about upcoming performers and events, become a by texting CONCERT to 660-248-0496.
For more information, visit ucmo.edu/music, email musicoffice@ucmo.edu or call 660-543-4530.