Sigma Alpha Iota

2 Winter 2022 • sai-national.org B ursting with joy, drama, and hope — from the tragic to the sublime — the music of Amy Riebs Mills (b.1955) is known for its melodic beauty, rhythmic intensity, and harmonic richness, and has been enthusiastically received by audiences around the world. Complementing a successful conducting career that has spanned over four decades, Amy Riebs Mills is increasingly in demand as a composer, writing in all genres. She has guest conducted orchestras on four continents. She 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 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' virtuoso piece for trombone, Red Dragonfly, at the 2013 International Trombone Festival, and premiered the band version in 2015 at the American Trombone Workshop with the US Army Band. Kanda commissioned Mills to write another piece, Golden, which will be premiered at the 2021 International Trombone Festival. Atlanta Symphony bass trombonist Brian Hecht commissioned Catharsis for bass trombone and piano, and premiered the piece at UT-Austin in 2016; later the US Army performed the band version at the American Trombone Festival. Dennis Najoom, co-principal trumpet of the Milwaukee Symphony commissioned, recorded, and posted the Internet premiere of Journey One, Concerto for Trumpet and String Orchestra; Amy McCabe of the U.S. Marine Band presented the live 2022 Natial Cvention A ndrea Clearfield (b. 1960) is an award-winning composer of music for chorus, orchestra, opera, chamber ensemble, dance, and multimedia collaborations. She is an SAI Honorary Member, initiated in 2005 by the Eta Rho Chapter and is a member of the SAI Composers Bureau. 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" and the Philadelphia Inquirer for her "compositional wizardry" and "mastery with large choral and instrumental forces." She was appointed the Steven R. Gerber Composer in Residence with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Dirk Brossé, Artistic Director for their 2018-19 season. She is 2020-2022 Composer- in-residence with National Concerts at Carnegie Hall. Her works are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. Among her 150+ works are eleven large-scale cantatas including Kabo Omowale, commissioned by e Philadelphia Orchestra. Her cantata, Tse Go La, for double chorus, electronics, and chamber orchestra is inspired by her music fieldwork documenting Tibetan melodies in the Himalayas. Lung-Ta (e Windhorse) was presented as a gi to His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama as an initiative for world peace. Andrea was a 2020 recipient of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage International Artist Residency, was named the 2020 e David Del Tredici Residency Fellow at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY, and was awarded a 2020 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship in Taos, NM. She has been commissioned by e Mendelssohn Club to write a large-scale work funded by the NEA for chorus and percussion to libretto by Ellen Frankel for a November 2021 premiere, and a new work for chorus and orchestra for the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque for December 2021 premiere. Her first opera, Mila, Great Sorcerer, to Spotlight on the IAMA Composer-Judges As we approach the 2022 SAI National Convention this summer, we'd like to introduce the two Composer-Judges for the 2022 International American Music Awards (IAMA) Composition Competition. IAMA provides both the selected winner and the composer-judges with the opportunity for publication, through C.F. Peters, as well as a public performance of their works at the national convention.

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