Sigma Alpha Iota

6 Winter 2024 • sai-national.org New Music Premieres at the North Star New Music Festival The Epsilon Pi chapter of SAI, located on the campus of Truman State University, had the absolute pleasure of organizing the North Star New Music Festival. e event took place on October 27th and 28th in Ophelia Parrish and featured many wonderful performances by Truman students, faculty, and guest artists. We would like to thank everyone who participated in this festival, and all those who joined us to celebrate music! e North Star New Music Festival is an annual event that celebrates new music by commissioning a composer to write a piece for one of our ensembles here on campus. is year, we commissioned Dr. Heather Gilligan from Keene State College, and her four movement piece Movements in Motion (2023) was written for and premiered by the Truman State Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Dr. Paul Grobey. Dr. Gilligan not only wrote the commissioned piece for our Symphony Orchestra, she also made the trip out from Keene, New Hampshire to Northern Missouri to work on its performance in person. roughout the festival, students and faculty presented additional compositions by Dr. Gilliigan in performance, including Swallowtail Suite (2018) by the ensemble Uncommon Practice and Garden Songs (2007) performed by Truman faculty. Dr. Gilligan expresses an interest in the relationship between different voices, such as the trumpet and soprano in Garden Songs (2007). On the Saturday of the festival, she gave an in-depth presentation of who she is as a composer. As seen in her bio, she writes music that is "honest, compassionate, and relevant, and places an emphasis on the inclusiveness of women in the world of music." On Saturday, she strolled onto campus with a shirt that exclaimed "Compose like a Girl!" which perfectly encapsulates what her work means for solo, chamber, and large ensemble repertoire. e commissioned piece that premiered on October 28th during our closing concert was Movements in Motion (2023), with movements Groove, Glide, Frolic, and Fly, depicting the life and mannerisms of a butterfly, with various features across the ensemble including our double reeds. Dr. Gilligan, once in Kirksville, was able to rehearse the piece with Dr. Grobey and the orchestra to put the finishing touches on it before it was presented to the world for the first time. While the festival itself only took place for two days in late October, our North Star Committee was hard at work in February of 2023 to plan for the event. Chapter members, including North Star Committee chair Lilliane Winston, along with Truman professor Dr. Victor Márquez-Barrios, began sketching out the plan for the event by deciding who we were going to commission to write a new piece for us. e whole thing began with a vote done by our chapter regarding who we were going Dr. Victor Márquez-Barrios welcomes everyone Dr. Victor Márquez-Barrios welcomes everyone to the North Star New Music Festiva to the North Star New Music Festival. l. Epsilon Pi commissioned Dr. H Epsilon Pi commissioned Dr. Heather Gilligan eather Gilligan to write to write Movements in Motion Movements in Motion (2023) for the (2023) for the Truman State Symphony Orchestra. Truman State Symphony Orchestra.

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