Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES Winter 2020 13 2021 IAMA COMPOSER/JUDGES Andrea Clearfield An SAI Honorary Member and member of the SAI Composers Bureau, Andrea Clearfield is an award-winning composer of music for orchestra, opera, chorus, chamber ensemble, dance, and multimedia collaborations. Clearfield creates deep, emotive musical languages that build cultural and artistic bridges. She has been praised by the New York Times for her "graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing", the Philadelphia Inquirer for her "compositional wizardry" and "mastery with large choral and instrumental forces", the L.A. Times for her "fluid and glistening orchestration", and by Opera News for her "vivid and galvanizing" music of "timeless beauty". Her works are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. Among her 150 works are eleven large-scale cantatas, including one commissioned and premiered by e Philadelphia Orchestra. Recent works are inspired by Tibetan music fieldwork that she conducted in the Nepalese Himalaya. Her first opera, MILA, Great Sorcerer, was presented at the acclaimed NYC Prototype Festival in January 2019. Praised by the press as "mystical and dramatically compelling" and "the most accomplished and mature of this year's compositions", the opera focuses on the life of the great Tibetan sage, Milarepa, who transformed from mass murderer into Tibet's most venerated teacher. Lung-Ta (e Windhorse) was presented to His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama as an initiative for world peace. She was appointed the Steven R. Gerber Composer in Residence with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia for their 2018-19 season and is 2020 Composer-in-Residence with National Concerts at Carnegie Hall. Dr. Clearfield was awarded a 2017 Independence Foundation Fellowship, a 2016 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and fellowships at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, American Academy in Rome, Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Ucross, Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Copland House. Her music is published by Boosey & Hawkes, G. Schirmer, Hal Leonard, and Seeadot, and recorded on the Bridge, Sony, MSR, Albany, Crystal, and Innova labels. She served on the Composition and Interdisciplinary Arts faculty at e University of the Arts from 1986–2011. Passionate for building community around the arts, she is founder and host of the renowned Salon featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic, dance, and world music since 1986. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Recording Academy/Grammy's, Philadelphia Chapter. A native of Philadelphia, she received a D.M.A. in composition from Temple University, was a two-time winner of the John Heller Memorial Award for Excellence in Composition, and was the first composer to receive the prestigious University-wide Presidential Fellowship. She received an M.M. in Piano from e University of the Arts and a BA in Music from Muhlenberg College, where she graduated with first prizes in Performance and Musicianship. www.andreaclearfield.com Amy Riebs Mills An SAI initiate of Beta Chapter at Northwestern University, former affiliate of the Washington, D.C. Alumnae Chapter, and a member of the SAI Composers Bureau, Amy Riebs Mills is increasingly in demand as a composer, writing in all genres, including orchestra and band, winds and strings, voice, chorus and piano. Her music has been performed by the state orchestra of Aquascalientes, Mexico and the US Army Band, and at the International Women's Brass Conference, the International Trombone Festival, the American Trombone Workshop. She has guest conducted orchestras on four continents, has served on the faculty of the Conductors' Institute at Bard College, and frequently serves as an adjudicator and clinician. In a Mexican debut, Ms. Mills conducted the world premiere of her five movement orchestral work, Ha Shamayim, (based on images from the Hubble telescope) with the Aguascalientes Symphony, in a concert broadcast on television and radio. Megumi Kanda, principal trombonist of the Milwaukee Symphony, commissioned and premiered Ms. Mills' trombone sonata, Red Dragonfly, at the 2013 International Trombone Festival. And in 2015 Ms. Kanda premiered the band version at the American Trombone Workshop with the US Army Band. Aer hearing Red Dragonfly, Brian Hecht, bass trombonist with the Atlanta Symphony, commissioned Catharsis for bass trombone and piano, and premiered the piece at the University of Texas, Austin in 2016. Ms. Mills founded and served as Music Director of the National Women's Symphony in Washington, D.C., a professional orchestra featuring the music of women composers along with recognized masters. Aer founding this ensemble in 1992, they performed world and American premieres of works by Libby Larsen, Pulitzer Prize winner Melinda Wagner, Jennifer Higdon, and Augusta Read omas. e orchestra also collaborated with the Norwegian and Canadian embassies in presenting American premieres of women composers of their countries. Ms. Mills holds a doctorate in conducting from Catholic University, and a bachelor's and master's degree in music from Northwestern University, where she was the School of Music's 1995 commencement speaker. She continued her studies at the Conductors' Institute, Tanglewood, and the Oregon Bach Festival, studying with Gustav Meier, Harold Farberman, Daniel Lewis, and Helmut Rilling. She has served on the faculty of the Conductors' Institute at Bard College and frequently serves as an adjudicator and clinician. www.amymillsmusic.com SAI Philanthropies, Inc. is pleased to announce the Composer/Judges for the 2021 Inter-American Music Awards cycle of Instrumental Solo with Piano: Andrea Clearfield and Amy Riebs Mills. Find the application online at: https://www.sai-national.org/images/PDFs/IAMA.pdf

• Cover