Sigma Alpha Iota

sai-national.org • Winter 2022 3 2022 Natial Cvention libretto by Jean-Claude van Itallie and Lois Walden, was presented at the acclaimed NYC Prototype Festival in January 2019. Hailed by the press as "mystical and dramatically compelling," "a colorful, expressive score," "lush and rich," "a sonic exultation with lasting power," "successfully delivers its redemptive message," "highly recommended," and "the most accomplished and mature of this year's compositions," the opera was commissioned and produced by Gene Kaufman and Terry Eder and directed by Kevin Newbury. She is a recipient of a 2017 Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts, a 2016 Pew Fellowship and was awarded fellowships at the American Academy in Rome, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, e MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross, Blue Mountain Center, Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, Djerassi, Montalvo, Civitella Ranieri, Ragdale, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Copland House among others. She was keyboardist with the Relâche Ensemble for 25 years and was honored to have been invited to perform with the Court of the Dalai Lama. She has been invited as visiting composer to numerous universities and colleges including Yale-National University of Singapore, Curtis Institute of Music, University of Texas at Austin, Emory University, Indiana University, University of Chicago, College of William and Mary, Michigan State, University of Arkansas, and the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia. Clearfield is in demand as a curator, adjudicator, speaker, and concert host. Attendees of SAI's 2018 National Convention in Scottsdale will no doubt remember her transfixing Keynote Speech called: "Creating the Cantata, Tse Go La (At the reshold of this Life): My Experience at Pan's Cottage." She has served on the Board of Directors of the Recording Academy (Grammy's) Philadelphia Chapter. Her music is published by Boosey & Hawkes, G. Schirmer, Hal Leonard, and Seeadot. Dr. Clearfield served on the composition faculty at e University of the Arts from 1986 – 2011. She received a DMA from Temple University where she was awarded the University-wide Presidential Fellowship and was honored as a Distinguished Alumna. A passionate advocate for building community around the arts, she is also the founder and host of the renowned Salon featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic, dance, and world music since 1986 and winner of Philadelphia Magazine's "Best of Philadelphia" award. premiere of Journey One at the 2014 International Women's Brass Conference. Under the baton of Maestro Harvey Felder, Christmas Angels and Bells was premiered by the Tacoma Symphony in 2012. Chamber commissions include works for the Baltimore Holiday Brass (2014 premiere) and Chicago's Sapphire Woodwind Quintet (New Dancing Shoes, Suite for Woodwind Quintet premiered in 2015). Shelley Waite premiered Advent Trilogy (ree Men of Christmas) in Morristown, Tennessee in 2015. Orchestras around the U.S. have performed her pops arrangements. For fourteen seasons Amy Mills was Music Director of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in Wisconsin, where the La Crosse Tribune called her "a fireball of excitement and enthusiasm." Her improvements in the artistic quality of the orchestra brought unprecedented growth in performance offerings and ticket sales, as well as magnifying the orchestra's profile and community engagement. As a guest conductor, internationally Maestra Mills has led Dubna Symphony Orchestra (Russia), Szczeczin Philharmonic (Poland), Israel Kibbutz Orchestra, Rio De Janeiro Philharmonic (Brazil), and Mexico's Orquesta Filarmonica de Acapulco and Orquesta Sinfonica de Aguascalientes. In the United States she has guest conducted the Acadiana Symphony in Louisiana, the Springfield Symphony in Missouri, the Arlington Symphony of Virginia, and the Traverse Symphony in Michigan. She led the Houston Symphony on a program for the presidential inauguration in 1988, and also conducted New York City's Center Symphony, the Minnesota's Winona Symphony, the Pacific University Honors Orchestra, and the Tennessee Governor's School Orchestra. She also served as cover conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra. In 1992, Ms. Mills founded and served as Music Director of the National Women's Symphony in Washington, D.C., a professional orchestra featuring the music not only of recognized masters but distinguished women composers, presenting world and American premieres of works by Libby Larsen [SAI Member Laureate], Pulitzer Prize winner Melinda Wagner, SAI Honorary Member 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. Prior to her appointment in La Crosse, Ms. Mills was the youngest Music Director of the U.S. Air Force Band, Orchestra, and Chorus. Luminaries who appeared with these ensembles under her baton include Robert Merrill, Wilford Brimley and Peter Graves; several of these events were broadcast nationally on PBS. She was the first woman to serve as Music Director of the U.S. Air Force Singing Sergeants, conducting the 27 member full-time professional chorus in over 350 concerts around the country. Maestra Mills is an initiate of SAI's Beta Chapter, Northwestern University, former affiliate of the Washington, D.C. Alumnae Chapter, and a member of the SAI Composers Bureau. She 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 and her husband live on a lake near Washington, D.C. Learn more at: www.amymillsmusic.com Learn more at: www.andreaclearfield.com

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