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SAI Pan Pipes Fall14

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sAI-NATIONAL.ORg FALL 2014 PAN PIPES 35 Carrol MClauGHlIn Carrol McLaughlin, DMA, was initiated as a Member Laureate by the Alpha Beta Chapter in April 2011. A harpist, Dr. McLaughlin has performed extensively as a soloist and with orchestras throughout North and South America, Europe, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, India, and Russia. Her career has included concert performances around the world. She has given solo recitals in Carnegie Hall, New York; Wigmore Hall, London; Casals Hall, Tokyo; and the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. She was featured as the opening recitalist at the World Harp Congress in Copenhagen and the American Harp Society National Conference in Denver. She has received the honor of being named a Fulbright Senior Scholar and has done two residencies in Egypt, teaching at the Cairo Conservatory and performing throughout the country. Her education includes a Masters of Music from the Julliard School and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Arizona, where she originally initiated with Alpha Beta as a collegiate member. In 1982, she became head of the Harp Department at the University of Arizona and was the recipient of the 1994 Five Star Faculty Teaching Award for Excellence. As an instructor, she has written Power Performance to aid performers with stage anxiety and is the director of Harp Fusion, a unique harp ensemble that has achieved international recognition and performance opportunities. Harp Fusion is one of the largest and most respected touring harp ensembles in the world, and they have attained international acclaim for their innovative and creative programming. jennIFer HIGdon Jennifer Higdon was initiated as an Honorary Member by the Philadelphia Alumnae Chapter in February. Pulitzer-prize winner Jennifer Higdon started late in music, teaching herself to play flute at the age of 15 and then beginning formal musical studies at 18, with an even later start in composition at the age of 21. She has since become a major figure in contemporary classical music and makes her living from commissions, representing a range of genres from orchestral to chamber and from opera to choral to wind ensemble. Hailed by e Washington Post as "a savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit," the League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America's most frequently performed composers. Higdon's list of commissions and performing organizations is extensive and includes e Philadelphia Orchestra, e Chicago Symphony, e Atlanta Symphony, e Baltimore Symphony, e Boston Symphony Orchestra, e Cleveland Orchestra, e Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, e London Philharmonic Orchestra, e Luzern Sinfonieorchester, e Hague Philharmonic, e Melbourne Symphony, e New Zealand Symphony, e Pittsburgh Symphony, e Indianapolis Symphony, e Dallas Symphony, as well as such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, and the President's Own Marine Band. Higdon received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, with the committee citing Higdon's work as a "deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity." She is the fourth woman to win the award, following SAI Beta Alpha initiate Ellen T. Zwilich in 1983 and fellow SAI Composers Bureau member Shulamit Ran in 1991. She has also received awards from the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters (two awards), the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, and ASCAP. Higdon was the University of Wyoming's Eminent Artist-in-Residence during the 2010- 2011 season. In 2012, she was honored by the Delaware Symphony with the A.I. DuPont Award for her contributions to the symphonic literature. She has been a Featured Composer at festivals including Tanglewood, Vail, Cabrillo, Grand Teton, Norfolk, and Winnipeg. She has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Fort Worth Symphony. Higdon's compositions are given several hundred performances a year. Her orchestral work blue cathedral is one of the most performed contemporary orchestral works and has received more than 500 performances worldwide since its premiere in 2000. Her works have been recorded on over four dozen CDs. Her Percussion Concerto won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in January 2010. Other albums including her music that have won Grammys include Higdon: Concerto for Orchestra/ City Scape, Strange Imaginary Animals, and Transmigration. She is currently writing an opera, based on Charles Frazier's book Cold Mountain, which is scheduled to be premiered in August 2015, by Santa Fe Opera. It has been co-commissioned by Opera Philadelphia which will present the opera in February 2016, and by the Minnesota Opera. Dr. Higdon currently holds the Milton L. Rock Chair in Composition Studies at e Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press. MIMI stIllMan Mimi Stillman was initiated as an Honorary member by the Philadelphia Alumnae Chapter in February. She has garnered an international following for her flute performance, teaching, writing and most recently her online project Syrinx Journey, a tribute to Claude Debussy on his 150th anniversary. At age 12, she was the youngest wind player ever admitted to the Curtis dIstInGuIsHed MeMbers memBer Laureate an initiated member of the Fraternity who has achieved international distinction in the music profession. HOnOrary memBer a woman who has achieved international distinction in the music profession who is not an initiated member of Sigma Alpha Iota. DISTINGUISHED continued on page 36

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