ARTISTS  |  COMPOSERS

 

Jerod Tate (Chickasaw)

 

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate was born in 1968 in Norman, Oklahoma, and is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. Mr. Tate is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition and serves as the artistic director for the Chickasaw Chamber Music Festival. He is Composer-in-Residence for the Chickasaw Nation and the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy.

 

A recent review of his music by The Washington Post states that "Tate's connection to nature and the human experience was quite apparent... rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism." This review was a response to a performance of Iholba' (The Vision), for Solo Flute, Orchestra and Chorus, which was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

 

Iholba' and Tracing Mississippi, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, were recorded in 2007 by the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus and are currently available on Thunderbird Records.

 

In 2006, Mr. Tate was the recipient of the Joyce Award which supported the commission of Nitoshi' Imali, Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, which premiered in 2007 with soloist Jason Vieaux and the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis, conducted by Cary John Franklin. In 2008, he was appointed Cultural Ambassador for the State of Oklahoma. His recent work, Lowak Shoppala' (Fire and Light), for orchestra, dance, solo and children's chorus, was originally commissioned by the American Composers Forum Continental Harmony Project and produced by the Chickasaw Nation. Lowak Shoppala' premiered November 21, 2009, at the Hallie Brown Fine Arts Center at East Central University in Ada, Okla.

 

Mr. Tate also initiated the creation of Oshtali: Music for String Quartet, the first professional recording in history of works by young American Indian composers from the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy.

 

Mr. Tate received his BM in Piano Performance from Northwestern University where he studied with Dr. Donald J. Isaak. He received his MM in Piano Performance and Composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music where he studied with Elizabeth Pastor and Dr. Donald Erb. Shortly after beginning his piano studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Jerod's first composition, Winter Moons, a ballet score, was commissioned by Dr. Patricia Tate and premiered at the University of Wyoming in 1992. Colorado Ballet subsequently performed it in 1994 and 1996.

 

Since then, Tate has received numerous commissions and his works have been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Ballet, the New Mexico Symphony, the Contemporary Music Forum, Dale Warland Singers, the New Jersey Chamber Music Society and the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, to name a few.

 

Select compositions performed during the music festival are from Oshtali: Music for String Quartet, an album consisting of original compositions by Mr. Tate's students from the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy. It is the first professional recording in history of works by young American Indian composers and was conceived and implemented by Mr. Tate.

 

Raven Chacon (Diné)

 

Raven Chacon is an American composer and artist. He is known for being a composer of chamber music as well as being a solo performer of experimental noise music.

 

Chacon has recorded many works for classical and electronic instruments and ensembles and has had many performances and exhibits of his work across the U.S. as well as Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He has a MFA in music composition from the California Institute of the Arts and has served on the Music and Native American Studies faculties at the University of New Mexico and as a visiting artist in the new media art & performance program at Long Island University.

 

Chacon performs regularly as a solo artist as well as with numerous ensembles in the Southwest. He is also a member of the Postcommodity Art Collective. He lives in Albuquerque, NM.

 

Trevor Reed (Hopi/Kickapoo)

 

Trevor Reed began his career in the performing arts as a double bassist and composer. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in music composition. He received his first master's degree in arts administration from Columbia University's Teachers College and a subsequent masters' in Ethnomusicology from Columbia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Reed's compositions have received awards from the Vera Hinckley Mayhew Composition Contest and the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration, and his recent work with Hopi composers to create new forms of indigenous concert music has received generous support from the First Nations Composer Initiative and Meet the Composer (New Music USA). Reed is currently a composer-in-residence with the Grand Canyon Music Festival's Native American Composer Apprentice Project and a Ford Fellow in Ethnomusicology at Columbia, pursuing a PhD. He is the proud father of four children.

 

George Quincy (Choctaw)

 

George Quincy has two degrees from the Juilliard School and has also taught there. He later became musical advisor to Martha Graham and went on to compose, orchestrate and conduct music for theater, dance, film, opera, television and concert. His music has been performed in Carnegie Hall, Weill Hall, Alice Tully Hall and many theaters in New York City.

 

Quincy's album, "Christmas," has been re-released and can be found on amazon.com. The New York Five, a chamber music group specializing in Quincy's music, played two concerts at the American Indian Wing of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. in October 2006. Albany Records has released a CD called CHOCTAW NIGHTS, based on Quincy's Choctaw background and the moons of Jupiter. "Pocahontas at the Court of James I, Part 1" was presented by the Queen's Chamber Band at Merkin Hall on May 9, 2007, and part two was presented in May 2008. Both parts of "Pocahontas" were presented at the American Indian Wing of the Smithsonian in 2008. He has received awards from ASCAP from 1997-2011 and many from Meet the Composer. He was featured in the Juilliard Journal in February 2008. He has completed a recording for Native Flute and orchestra entitled "Choctaw Diaries," which is paired with Pocahontas in a new CD released by Lyrichord. His new CD "The Journey of the Red Feather" was released in 2011 and was performed by the New York Five.

 

David A. Yeagley (Comanche)

 

David A. Yeagley at the age of 11, Yeagley began concentrated piano studies and at age 13 he took a serious interest in composing.

 

In 1970, Yeagley entered Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Oberlin, Ohio) where he majored in piano performance and composition. He studied composition with Joseph Wood and Richard Hoffman. He graduated in late 1974, and then entered Yale University School of Divinity, in New Haven Connecticut (1975). In 1976 he became a Ford Fellow, and transferred to Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia), continuing the study of music in its sociological, world context. He finished his Master of Divinity from Yale in 1979, and completed his Master of Arts from Emory in 1981.

 

Yeagley has functioned as a professional tenor as well, as cantor for St. Paul's in Glastonbury, CT (1991-92), and later as a salaried tenor for Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Oklahoma City (1995-96).

 

Yeagley began a doctorate at the University of Arizona in 1992. There he studied piano and composition. He graduated with a Doctorate of Musical Arts in 1994. His thesis, "Liszt's Dante Sonata: Origins and Criticism" was published in January 1995, in The Journal of the American Liszt Society, the same journal that published his "The Historical Influence of the String Bow on Musical Notation" in 1986. While at the University of Arizona, Yeagley was chosen as a pianist to represent the University in an American Ambassador program. He was also a Kellogg Fellow in the American Indian Ambassador program of LaDonna Harris' Americans for Indian Opportunity.

 

After returning to Oklahoma City, Yeagley began serious efforts in composition and made his first recordings in 2004. He specialized in American Indian classical flute. By 2007, Yeagley had more recordings on professional labels than any other American Indian classical composer. His recorded works included solo instrumental with orchestra (concerto style), unaccompanied instrumental, and scene from a grand opera on the Holocuast, "Jacek" (2005).

 

Yeagley has written many choral, vocal solo, chamber ensemble, solo and orchestral works. In the Spring of 2012, his symphonic movie score, "Daughter of Dawn" will be premiered, together with the silent film of the same title, made in 1920. Yeagley was commissioned by the Oklahoma State Historical Society to compose the sound track in 2007. The recording was made by the Oklahoma City University Philharmonic, Benjamin Nilles conducting. Yeagley is the first American Indian composer to be commissioned to write a full-length movie score.

 

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