Sigma Alpha Iota

sai-national.org • WINTER 2018 • PAN PIPES 3 M arguerite Kelly Kyle, the initial Director of the SAI Composers Bureau, died on December 2, 2017. She was 97. She was initiated by Alpha Upsilon at the University of Northern Iowa in 1939, where she earned a Master's in Music. She later affiliated with the Denton Alumnae Chapter. She held the Sword of Honor and the National Scholastic Award, and received the Ring of Excellence in 1957. With husband Ernest, Marguerite owned and operated Kyle's Drug in Wedgewood, IA, for many years. Later they moved to Keller where she enjoyed selling sheet music to students and teachers at C & S Music and Mr. E's until retiring at 86 years old. She played the organ in choirs at several locations in the area, including St. Andrew's, St. Joseph's, St. Johns, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Churches. ey had four children: Mary Jo Garst and husband John; Marcia Kyle and husband Tom Andersen; James Kyle and wife Cathy; and Joseph Kyle and wife Andrea. She had six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She held the position of Composers Bureau Director for 32 years. e First American Composer Music issue of Pan Pipes, December 1947, notes National President Kathleen Davison called for a Composers Bureau to be established in an address presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Music Council in May 1947. e December 1947 issue listed a Composers Bureau article for the first time. In it, Marguerite, citing the promotion of "many of the foremost women composers today," established the keeping and lending of composer library records she maintained in Iowa City. ese files included "over eight hundred representative copies, manuscripts, and scores by seventy of the SAI composers… assembled for the Composers Bureau Exhibit at the National Convention of the fraternity this past August in Detroit." She noted that updates to the composers would be printed in a regular column called "Music of the Moment" which ran throughout the year and listed new compositions under various categories. e December 1948 Pan Pipes included a "Pen Notes from our Composers" column that functioned as an alphabetized update, reprinting verbatim letters from the composers themselves. Marguerite edited the listings. In the December 1949 issue, she began a column called "AmerAllegro: Premieres, Recent Performances, New Releases." is list is similar to what we now call the American Composers Update. "Music of the Moment" continued to list new compositions. "AmerAllegro" appeared again in the December 1950 issue and subsequent winter issues. "Music of the Moment" now included a footnote stating the included publications "should be supplemented with the many compositions and their listed publishers found in 'Music From Recent Releases,' 'AmerAllegro,' and 'With Fraternity Composers.' " When Marguerite moved into an assisted living facility her family delivered nine boxes of composers archive materials to the SAI National Headquarters in Asheville, NC. Her astounding contribution to the expanding world of the American composer for thirty-two years is clearly evident in the correspondence she generated and her thorough representation of premieres and performances. SAI and composers across America are grateful for her years of dedication. GRACE NOTES Remembering Marguerite Kyle Marguerite Kelly Kyle as she appeared in the December 1947 Pan Pipes. The SAI Composers Bureau exists now as a searchable catalog on the SAI website. The constantly updated list of contemporary American composers features links to their own websites. www.sai-national.org/resources/ composers-bureau.html

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