Sigma Alpha Iota

sai-national.org • Spring 2024 9 SAIs in e News conductor, Chicago Symphony Orchestra residency, of the Ravinia Festival, where she curates and conducts the CSO's annual summer residency; as the first music director of the University of Maryland's National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F); and as music director laureate and OrchKids founder of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which she continues to conduct each season after an outstanding 14-year tenure as its music director. The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, Alsop has also been honored with the World Economic Forum's Crystal Award, and she made history as the first female conductor of the BBC's Last Night of the Proms. To promote and nurture the careers of her fellow female conductors, she founded the program now named the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2002. e Conductor, a documentary about her life, debuted at New York's 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and has subsequently been broadcast on PBS television, screened at festivals and theaters nationwide, and recognized with the Naples International Film Festival's 2021 Focus on the Arts Award. Before beginning her Philadelphia appointment, Alsop will make her company debut at the Metropolitan Opera, leading John Adams's El Niño (A Nativity Oratorio) in a fully staged new production starring soprano Julia Bullock and bass-baritone Davóne Tines. Other 2024 highlights include a new production of Bernstein's Candide with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, further performances with Polish National Radio Symphony and Philharmonia Orchestra, and guest conducting returns to the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Hamburg's NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, and Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Yannick Nézet-Séguin holds the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair. Alsop holds the Ralph and Beth Johnston Muller Chair (beginning in September 2024). [Press Release, January 9, 2024] Marin Alsop was initiated as an Honorary Member of SAI in 2001 by the Volusia County Alumnae Chapter. For more information, visit https://www.marinalsop.com/ C omposer Libby Larsen, an SAI Member Laureate first initiated by Sigma Sigma Chapter, has been honored this spring with election to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. One of America's most performed living composers, she has composed over 500 works for orchestra, opera, vocal and chamber music, symphonic winds, and band. Her work is widely recorded. She is also a member of the SAI Composers Bureau. An advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer's Forum. Grammy Award winner and former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Colorado Symphony. As Artistic Director of the John Duffy Institute for New Opera (2014-2020), she guided a faculty of practicing professional artists in nurturing and production of new opera by American Composers. Larsen's 2017 biography, Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life, Denise Von Glahn, author, is available from the University Illinois Press. e American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country's leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Early members included Julia Ward Howe, Henry James, Edward MacDowell, eodore Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton. e Academy's 300 members are elected for life when vacancies occur and pay no dues. e Academy seeks to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by administering over 70 awards and prizes, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding performances of new works of musical theater, and purchasing artwork for donation to museums across the country. To learn more, visit https://libbylarsen.com/ and https://artsandletters.org/ Larsen joins the Academy's ranks with a number of Larsen joins the Academy's ranks with a number of esteemed musicians who have connections to SAI: esteemed musicians who have connections to SAI: John Adams (Composers Bureau) Samuel Adler (National Arts Associate; Composers Bureau) John Corigliano (Composers Bureau) Jennifer Higdon (Honorary; Composers Bureau) Stephen Jaffe (Composers Bureau) Tania León (National Arts Associate; Composers Bureau) Wynton Marsalis (National Arts Associate) Meredith Monk (Composers Bureau) Shulamit Ran (Composers Bureau) Steve Reich (Composers Bureau) Roger Reynolds (Composers Bureau) Maria Schneider (National Arts Associate) Joseph Schwantner (National Arts Associate) Roberto Sierra (Composers Bureau) Alvin Singleton (Friend of the Arts) Augusta Read Thomas (Honorary; Composers Bureau) Joan Tower (Honorary; Composers Bureau) Yehudi Wyner (National Arts Associate) Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Beta Alpha Alumna; Composers Bureau) Larsen Joins Academy of Arts and Leers Ann Marsden Photo Ann Marsden Photo

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