Sigma Alpha Iota

6 Winter 2025 • sai-national.org Libby Larsen is one of America's most performed living composers. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2024), she has composed over 500 works including orchestra, opera, vocal and chamber music, symphonic winds, and band. Her work is widely recorded. An advocate for the music and musicians of our time, Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum in 1973, now the American Composer's Forum. Former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at 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 was recipient of the Distinguished Composer Award in 2014. Created in 1986, this award is presented biennially to outstanding composers of organ and choral music in the United States. She has received numerous other awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award as producer of the The Art of Arlene Augér, an acclaimed recording that features Larsen's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Her opera Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus was selected as one of the eight best classical music events of 1990 by USA Today. Larsen was the first woman to serve as resident composer with a major orchestra. Her many commissions and recordings are a testament to her fruitful collaborations with a long list of world-renowned artists, including The King's Singers, SAI Honorary Member Benita Valente, and Frederica von Stade. Her works are recorded on such labels as Angel/EMI, Nonesuch, Decca, and Koch International. Larsen's biography—Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life, by Denise Von Glahn—is available from the University of Illinois Press. She is an initiate of the Sigma Sigma Chapter at the University of Minnesota and was designated a Member Laureate in 1995. She has been a member of the SAI Composers Bureau since 1993. Natial Cvention Libby Larsen Libby Larsen Ann Marsden photo Ann Marsden photo Each triennium, SAI Philanthropies, Inc., sponsors the Inter-American Music Awards (IAMA) composition competition. The winning composition will be performed at National Convention's IAMA Concert on Friday, July 18. Two composers are asked to be judges of the competition, and each are commissioned to write a piece to be premiered at the IAMA Concert. The winning composition and commissioned pieces will be published by C.F. Peters Corporation (Wise Music Group) as part of the IAMA series. Here is an introduction to this year's IAMA Composer-Judges. Jerod Impichchaachaahá Tate is a classical composer and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. He is a 2022 Chickasaw Hall of Fame inductee and a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from The Cleveland Institute of Music. In 2021, he was appointed a Cultural Ambassador for the US Department of State. Among many recent premieres, Tate's highlights include commissions from the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Cantori NY, and Turtle Island Quartet. This season, Dover String Quartet tours Tate's new quartet, Woodland Songs; Oklahoma's Canterbury Voices premieres Tate's first opera, Loksi' Shaali' (Shell Shaker); PostClassical Ensemble presents an all-American-Indian program curated by Tate in Washington, DC; and his popular work Chokfi' has been programmed by the Austin, Eureka, and Ft. Collins symphonies. Tate is currently at work on a new violin concerto for acclaimed violinist Irina Muresanu, as well as new works for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and North Carolina Symphony Orchestra. Tate is a three-time commissioned recipient from the American Composers Forum, a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program recipient, a Cleveland Institute of Music Alumni Achievement Award recipient, a governor- appointed Creativity Ambassador for the State of Oklahoma, and an Emmy Award-winner for his work on the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority documentary The Science of Composing. His music was also featured in the HBO series Westworld. Tate earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University and a Master of Music in Piano Performance and Composition from The Cleveland Institute of Music. His middle name, Impichchaachaahá, means "their high corncrib" and is his inherited traditional Chickasaw house name. He has been a member of the SAI Composers Bureau since 2024. INTRODUCING: THE 2025 IAMA COMPOSER-JUDGES Jerod Tate Jerod Tate Shevaun Williams photo Shevaun Williams photo

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