Sigma Alpha Iota

sai-national.org • Summer 2024 11 American music. rough many twists and turns in the Music Festival's leadership, eventually all races of people and all genders of people were invited to partake in this distinctly American singing competition, in an attempt to fully recognize the melting pot of this country's background. What measures and changes did the ATC make to continue and adapt during the Covid-19 Pandemic? During the COVID-19 pandemic, we changed all of our concerts to outdoor events, which was thankfully quite simple due to the mild and comfortable climate in Savannah, Georgia. e more challenging piece of the puzzle was actually producing our annual vocal competition online - that was a doozy! Very little of our music is in the public domain, so we couldn't just put it on Youtube. We had to find a separate streaming source that paid royalties to all the publishers and songwriters. We ended up working with Tresona to accomplish this, and it was one of the easier parts of the puzzle. It became very tech-heavy, as you might imagine, and each artist entrusted us with their recordings as we tinkered with balance and any sound distortions, as everyone had to record their tracks at home and send them in to us. It was a puzzle that we don't have to repeat. I would say the only thing we're still doing is live- streaming our competition—folks really enjoy tuning in! Can you share some recent success stories from ATC winners and alumnae? We have so many amazing success stories from ATC. We had the recent Aladdin on Broadway, Michael Maliakel, who won the competition in 2016 and is opening the Asheville Symphony season; we have Broadway's Julie Benko who's been named to Variety and NYTimes lists of folks to watch in theatre. Funny enough, she was an alternate in 2017, and was let into the competition very late and then turned around and won the whole thing; that's been a theme in her life — she had great recent acclaim for being the Standby for the recent Broadway revival of Funny Girl and saving the show aer the first Fanny Brice (Beanie Feldstein) departed the show, holding it over with a very long run until Lea Michele joined the company. In Opera, we have Will Liverman who competed during the COVID virtual year. Will starred in Fire Shut Up In My Bones at the Met in fall 2021, just aer the ATC earlier that year, and then turned around with a GRAMMY®-nominated solo album in the spring of 2022. He then wrote and debuted a sold out new opera called e Factotum (a modern-day version of e Barber of Seville) at Chicago Lyric Opera, before winning a GRAMMY® for his work in Fire and starring as Malcom X at the Met. ere are so many others — folks who regained their spirit for singing, folks who developed a cabaret show based on the music they learned for ATC. I just focused on these three. Also our 2023 competition winner, Alysha Umphress, sang for 20,000 people at Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia, with the Savannah Philharmonic (part of her prize for winning), and had just come from Italy where she sang Bernstein's On e Town at Teatro La Scala. is past fall, she sang an orchestrated cabaret concert with one of our partners, the Asheville Symphony, in Asheville, NC. What are the ATC's plans for future events, programs, or expansion? We are always looking to the future. We just finished our 30th annual competition, and are looking ahead to our next competition in February. Our main focus right now is on the next generation — continuing to amplify our educational programs, including our Junior ATC (High school competition) and our in-classroom experiences for students. We believe the only way to continue the traditions of our rich history of American music is to share our passion for these songs with students, in hopes it reaches them, too. —Interviewed by Christine Bruns, Editor Cpetition Mikki Sodergren, Mikki Sodergren, Executive and Artistic Director of the American Executive and Artistic Director of the American Traditions Vocal Competition Traditions Vocal Competition 32ND ANNUAL AMERICAN TRADITIONS VOCAL COMPETITON APPLICATION June 26- August 25, 2024 Reduced Application fee ($40) August 26 - September 22, 2024 Application fee raises to full price ($60) September 22, 2024 All applications due by midnight PST for ATC 2025 November 3, 2024 All applicants informed as to their status with ATC 2025 January 27-31, 2025 32nd Annual American Traditions Vocal Competition atcsavannah.org/apply-now

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