Composer Curator: Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate

YouTube premiere: Chat live with the guest creatives.

featuring composers:

Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate

‍

Composer Curator is an initiative of Composers Now, presented through our digital platform on the Composers Now YouTube channel. This series empowers groundbreaking music creators to serve as curators, storytellers, and cultural connectors—designing and hosting programs that offer rare, behind-the-scenes access to their creative processes and artistic collaborations.

Working across genres and in dialogue with artists from other disciplines, each featured composer curates performances, leads insightful conversations, and shares compelling commentary that deepens understanding and expands horizons for composers, performers, and audiences alike.

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a Chickasaw-American father, classical composer, and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. The Washington Post 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. ”

‍Among Tate’s recent premieres, highlights include commissions from the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Cantori NY, and Turtle Island Quartet. The Dover String Quartet commissioned Tate’s new quartet, Woodland Songs and Pura Fe’s Rattle Songs. In fall 2024, Oklahoma's Canterbury Voices performed the World Premiere of Tate's Loksi' Shaali' (Shell Shaker), reprised at Mount Holyoke University in spring 2025. His American Indian Symphony received its West Coast premiere at the Oregon Bach Festival ,conducted by Ken David Masur. Tate is currently at work on new commissions for the Big Ten Band Directors Association, violin soloist Irina Muresanu, and a special project with Wallowa Homeland in collaboration with the Oregon East Symphony.

Tate is a three-time commissioned recipient from the American Composers Forum, a Chamber Music America 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 .His music was also featured in the HBO series Westworld.

Tate is a 2022 Chickasaw Hall of Fame inductee and a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from The Cleveland Institute of Music. In 2021, Tate was appointed a Cultural Ambassador for the U. S. Department of State. In 2025, Tate won the Wise-Hinrichsen Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University and his Master of Music in Piano Performance and Composition from The Cleveland Institute of Music. His middle name ,Impichchaachaaha', means “their high corncrib” and is his inherited traditional Chickasaw house name.