South Dakota Symphony Orchestra to Take Part in Prestigious Composer Residency Program

South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) and Chickasaw classical composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate are one of only five composer and orchestra pairs selected to participate in Music Alive, a national three-year composer-orchestra residency program of the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA.

Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Music Alive prioritizes collaborative work and immersive experiences for composers, orchestra musicians, artistic leadership, and community members.

The significance of this residency lies in its contribution to SDSO’s extensive community engagement programs, which were recognized in 2016 when the SDSO was awarded the Bush Prize for Community Innovation.

The SDSO and Jerod have a long history of impactful work together. Jerod’s residency will focus on realizing the SDSO’s vision for Phase III of its flagship community engagement program the Lakota Music Project (LMP), initially created in 2005. The program will include an in depth residency in a small number of South Dakota Communities with the goal of continuing to foster cultural understanding through music.

“The SDSO strives to build bridges in our community and across the state and region with the goal of connecting people through music, of creating understanding through sharing something we all love,” said SDSO Music Director Delta David Gier. “This new partnership will allow the orchestra to impact the communities we serve in even more significant ways.”

More than visiting artists, the composers in residence will be centrally embedded within their orchestras, and their roles will be incorporated directly into the orchestras’ operations, programming and curatorial decisions, and activities in their communities. This includes developing new works or performing existing works by living composers and mentoring emerging composers through readings.

“This new iteration of Music Alive takes engagement several steps further, building opportunities for cohorts of composers to learn from each other, and for entire orchestra staffs and musicians, as well as their communities, to interact closely with these talented composers-in-residence,” said League of American Orchestras and CEO Jesse Rosen.

The program is determined to bring new music to our nation’s orchestras and the communities whom they serve.

“These new residencies will demonstrate even more powerfully than ever before the role that collaboration with living artists can play in vitalizing orchestras’ connections to their communities,” said New Music USA President and CEO Ed Harsh.

The five new Music Alive composer-orchestra pairings are:

  • Lembit Beecher and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
  • Anna Clyne and Berkeley Symphony
  • Stacy Garrop and Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra
  • Hannibal Lokumbe and The Philadelphia Orchestra
  • Jerod Tate and South Dakota Symphony Orchestra

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