Sigma Alpha Iota

64 TH annual COMPOSER bureau update T he First American Composer Music issue of PAN PIPES is dated December 1947. National President Kathleen Davison called for a Composers Bureau to be established in an address presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Music Council in May 1947. To further American Music, she notes five "channels," including the Composers Bureau. The December 1947 issue listed a Composers Bureau article for the first time. In it, Marguerite Kelly Kyle, Director of SAI's Composers Bureau, established the keeping and lending of composer library records she maintained in Iowa City. She noted that updates to the composers will be printed in a regular column called "Music of the Moment" which ran throughout the year and listed new compositions under various categories. The December 1948 PAN PIPES reprinted the cover of the December 1947 issue and declared it the "First American Music Issue." This 1948 issue included a "Pen Notes from our Composers" column that functioned as an alphabetized update, reprinting verbatim letters from the composers themselves. Mrs. Kyle edited the listing. In the December 1949 issue, Mrs. Kyle began a column called "AmerAllegro: Premieres, Recent Performances, New Releases." This list is not in any obvious order but is similar to what we now call the American Composers Update. "Music of the Moment" continued to list new compositions. "AmerAllegro" appeared again in the December 1950 issue and subsequent Winter PAN PIPES. "Music of the Moment" now included a footnote stating the included publications "should be supplemented with the many compositions and their listed publishers found in 'Music From Recent Releases,' 'AmerAllegro,' and 'With Fraternity Composers.' " The column lasted until the January 1979 issue of PAN PIPES. In the Winter 1980 issue, it was replaced by the "American Composer Update" with no editor credited. In the Winter 1981 issue, Jeanette Drone is listed as the Director of the Composers Bureau in the American Composer Update section. Since then, Gloria Swisher, Dorothy Gross, and Jane Ellen have served in this capacity, leading up to current director, Susan Cohn Lackman. The current Winter issue (2013) marks the 66th such issue directed toward American Music and the 64th formal composer update, beginning with "AmerAllegro" in 1949. M arguerite Kelly Kyle, a 1939 initiate of Alpha Upsilon Chapter at the University of Northern Iowa, and a member of the Denton,TX alumnae chapter, recently moved into an assisted living facility; her family delivered nine boxes of composers archive materials to the SAI National Headquarters in Asheville, NC. Her astounding contribution to the expanding world of the American composer for thirty-two years is clearly evident in the correspondence she generated and her thorough representation of premieres and performances. SAI and composers across America are grateful for her years of dedication. At left, the Dec. 1947 PAN PIPES was the first to feature the Composers Bureau. At right is the interior page describing the Bureau's mission as defined by the first Bureau Director, Marguerite Kelly. winter 13 PP.indd 17 2/12/2013 2:15:15 PM

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