Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate

Last updated

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate (born July 25, 1968) is a Chickasaw classical composer and pianist. [1] His compositions are inspired by North American Indian history, culture and ethos.

Contents

He has had several commissioned works, which have been performed by major orchestras in Washington, DC; San Francisco, Detroit, and Minneapolis, among others. When the San Francisco Symphony Chorus performed and recorded his work Iholba' in 2008, it was the first time the chorus had sung any work in Chickasaw or any American Indian language. [2] [ dead link ]

He is founder and artistic director of the Chickasaw Chamber Music Festival. He was Co-Founder and Composition Instructor for the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy.

Biography

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate [3] was born in 1968 in Norman, Oklahoma, is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, and is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. The Washington Post selected him as one of “22 for ’22: Composers and performers to watch this year” and raved that “Tate is rare as an American Indian composer of classical music. Rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism.”

Tate is a 2022 Chickasaw Hall of Fame inductee, a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from The Cleveland Institute of Music and was appointed 2021 Cultural Ambassador for the U. S. Department of State. He is Guest Composer, conductor, and pianist for San Francisco Symphony’s Currents Program, Thunder Song: American Indian Musical Cultures, and was recently Guest Composer for Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar Program, Home with ETHEL and Friends, featuring his commissioned work Pisachi (Reveal) for String Quartet.

His commissioned works have been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Ballet, Canterbury Voices, Dale Warland Singers, Santa Fe Desert Chorale and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Recent commissions include Shell Shaker: A Chickasaw Opera for Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra, Ghost of the White Deer, Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra for Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Hózhó (Navajo Strong) and Ithánali (I Know) for White Snake Opera Company. His music was recently featured on the HBO series Westworld.

Tate has held Composer-in-Residence positions for Music Alive, a national residency program of the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA, First Americans Museum, the Joyce Foundation/American Composers Forum, Oklahoma City’s NewView Summer Academy, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and Grand Canyon Music Festival Native American Composer Apprentice Project. Tate was the founding composition instructor for the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy and has taught composition to American Indian high school students in Minneapolis, the Hopi, Navajo, and Lummi reservations and Native students in Toronto.

Tate is a three-time commissioned recipient from the American Composers Forum, a Chamber Music America’s 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.

In addition to his work based upon his Chickasaw culture, Tate has worked with the music and language of multiple tribes, such as: Choctaw, Navajo, Cherokee, Ojibway, Creek, Pechanga, Comanche, Lakota, Hopi, Tlingit, Lenape, Tongva, Shawnee, Caddo, Ute, Aleut, Shoshone, Cree, Paiute, and Salish/Kootenai.

Among available recorded works are Iholba‘ (The Vision) for Solo Flute, Orchestra and Chorus and Tracing Mississippi, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, recorded by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, on the Grammy Award-winning label Azica Records. In 2021, Azica released Tate’s Lowak Shoppala' (Fire and Light) recorded by Nashville String Machine with the Chickasaw Nation Children’s Chorus and Dance Troupe; vocal soloists Stephen Clark, Chelsea Owen, Meghan Vera Starling; and narrators Lynne Moroney, Wes Studi, Richard Ray Whitman. Of the album, Sequenza21 wrote, “Tate has clearly taken the Western musical tradition and found a compelling voice that integrates his native culture.” His Metropolitan Museum of Art commission, Pisachi (Reveal), is featured on ETHEL String Quartet’s album Documerica. Azica Records recently released Tate’s inaugural composition, Winter Moons, and his MoonStrike, recorded by Apollo Chamber Players.

Tate earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, where he studied with Dr. Donald Isaak, and his Master of Music in Piano Performance and Composition from The Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Elizabeth Pastor and Dr. Donald Erb. He has performed as First Keyboard on the Broadway national tours of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon and been a guest composer/pianist and accompanist for the Colorado Ballet, Hartford Ballet, and numerous ballet and dance companies.

Tate’s middle name, Impichchaachaaha', means “his high corncrib” and is his inherited traditional Chickasaw house name. A corncrib is a small hut used for the storage of corn and other vegetables. In traditional Chickasaw culture, the corncrib was built high off the ground on stilts to keep its contents safe from foraging animals.

Reception

In reviewing 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, The Washington Post said, “Tate’s connection to nature and the human experience was quite apparent in this piece...rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism.”[ citation needed ]

Works

Commissioned works

Other chamber works

Film and media

Honors

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Stucky</span> American composer

Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.

Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.

Richard Danielpour is a music professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augusta Read Thomas</span> American composer (born 1964)

Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and professor.

Christopher Chapman Rouse III was an American composer. Though he wrote for various ensembles, Rouse is primarily known for his orchestral compositions, including a Requiem, a dozen concertos, and six symphonies. His work received numerous accolades, including the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He also served as the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012 to 2015.

Paul Seiko Chihara is an American composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Vieaux</span> American classical guitarist

Jason Vieaux is an American classical guitarist. He began his musical training in Buffalo, New York at the age of eight, after which he continued his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1992, Vieaux was awarded the Guitar Foundation of America International Guitar Competition First Prize, the event's youngest winner.

Brett Dean is an Australian composer, violist and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Jacobi</span> American composer

Frederick Jacobi was a Jewish-American composer and teacher. His works include symphonies, concerti, chamber music, works for solo piano and for solo organ, lieder, and one opera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Jaffe</span> American composer

Stephen Jaffe is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, United States, and serves on the music faculty of Duke University, where he holds the post of Mary and James H. Semans Professor of Music Composition; his colleagues there include composers Scott Lindroth, John Supko, and Anthony Kelley. Jaffe graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977; he received a master's degree the following year from the same institution. During his time in Pennsylvania, he studied with George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick.

Martin Boykan was an American composer known for his chamber music as well as music for larger ensembles.

Roberto Sierra is a Puerto Rican composer of contemporary classical music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Earl (composer)</span> South African composer and pianist

David Earl is a South African composer and pianist. He was educated at Rondebosch Boys' High School. He made his professional debut at the age of sixteen when he broadcast Bach, Chopin and Chabrier on the SABC. In 1968, he performed Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No 1 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. In 1971, he moved to London where he studied at Trinity College of Music. He studied under Jacob Kaletsky and Richard Arnell. After a live début broadcast recital on BBC Radio 3 in 1974, his first recital at Wigmore Hall was reported as "stylish and powerful" by The Times. In 1975, he was selected as one of the Young Musicians of the Year by the Greater London Arts Association. He also won first prize in the 1976 SABC Piano Competition. He was described by The Daily Telegraph as having "remarkable gifts of style, technical mastery and artistry". He made his début as a composer in the 1977 when he premiered his own Piano Suite No 1 Mosaics at Wigmore Hall. His concerto repertoire includes the Viennese classics, many from the nineteenth century, and amongst those from the 20th, the piano concertos of Arthur Bliss and John Joubert, both of which he studied with the composers. Conductors he has appeared with include Hugo Rignold, Maurice Handford, Piero Gamba and Christian Badea.

Michael Alec Rose composes chamber and symphonic music. He is Professor of Composition at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. His awards and commissions include the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s chamber music commission, for which he composed his String Quartet No. 2, premiered by the Meliora Quartet at Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress; a commission from the International Spoleto Festival for a violin-cello duo; twenty-five consecutive annual awards in composition from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 1986–2010; string quartet commissions from the Blair and Mendelssohn Quartets; and three commissioned performances by the Nashville Symphony, including Symphony No. 1—Paths of Peace (2000).

Steven Roy Gerber was an American composer of classical music. He attended Haverford College, graduating in 1969 at the age of twenty. He then attended Princeton University with a fellowship to study musical composition.

Philip Bračanin is an Australian composer and musicologist.

Eric Funk is an American contemporary classical composer and conductor. Originally from Deer Lodge, Montana, he currently resides in Bozeman, Montana, where he teaches music courses at Montana State University.

Eleanor Deanne Therese Alberga is a Jamaican contemporary music composer who lives and works in the United Kingdom. Her most recent compositions include two Violin Concertos, a Trumpet Concerto and a Symphony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Colina</span> Musical artist

Michael Dalmau Colina is a Grammy-winning American musician, composer, producer and engineer. He has written music for television, film, theatre, dance and live performances on concert stages throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. Colina is best known as producer and writer on recordings for musicians Bob James, David Sanborn, Michael Brecker, Marcus Miller, Bill Evans and Michael Franks. He has won three gold albums, has received four Grammy Award nominations, and won three Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Anna Clyne is an English composer, now resident in New York City, US. She has worked in both acoustic music and electro-acoustic music.

References

  1. Karl Gehrke, "American Indian traditions come to classical music", Minnesota Public Radio, 26 October 2007
  2. Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate (October 17, 2008). "Native Composer: Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate". NewMusicBox (Interview). Interviewed by Frank J. Oteri (published April 1, 2009). (includes video)
  3. Tate, Jerod. "Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate". Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate. Retrieved 2022-03-20.
  4. "Ghost of the White Deer" 2023-02-28, Jerod Tate, 2020
  5. "Jerod Tate" Archived 2014-10-09 at the Wayback Machine , Native Digest, 2009
  6. "Faculty and Staff" Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine , Music Dept., Oklahoma City University