2024
June 29, 2004 – Ada
Our program will feature Oklahoma Composers presenting how they engage in the song writing process. Concert pianist Stuart Deaver will perform one of his compositions as well as other classical repertoire. Skye Garcia, whose music is often selected for the NFMC Junior Festival Bulletin, will discuss music composition and how the story behind his songs influences the music he creates. Storytelling program manager for The Chickasaw Nation, Donna Courtney, will present a session containing music and storytelling from the Chickasaw perspective. Three NFMC Composition Winners, who are published composers, will perform their compositions. We will also enjoy several local musicians performing a variety of vocal and piano music.
Our Featured Performers
W. T. Skye Garcia is a recently retired Instructor of Music at East Central University, where for 34 years he taught music theory, sacred music, piano pedagogy, composition, and piano. He currently maintains a private piano studio and is an active composer. Most recently he has focused his compositional energies on indigenous projects. Through the White Dog Press of the Chickasaw Nation, he and his artist wife, Sarah, are creating original music, artwork, and activities thatMore than 50 of Skye’s solos and seven of his books for piano have been published by the Alfred and FJH Publishing companies. Skye was the OMTA 2005 Commissioned Composer, and his Oklahoma Centennial Suite for Band was honored by the State of Oklahoma as an Official Centennial Project.
Skye has taught seven Lynn Freeman Olson National Composition Award winners, one MTNA national winner, and one NFMC national runner-up. He was honored as an MTNA Foundation Fellow in 2010 and a DaVinci Fellow in 2014. He holds a BS degree from Colorado State University, a Master of Church Music (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary), and a Master of Music (Hardin-Simmons University).
Stuart Deaver, began playing the piano at age 11. By the age of 16 he was the first-place winner of the Tulsa Philharmonic’s Young Artist Competition. He has since won numerous awards and has performed across the United States as well as international performances in Portugal.
As researcher, he has presented papers internationally for the International Musicological Society in Stavanger, Norway, and the first joint-congress of the German Society for Music Theory and German Society for Popular Music Studies at the University of Music of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria.
He is Applied Assistant Professor of Piano and Coordinator of Piano Studies at the University of Tulsa. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Kansas where he studied with Sequeira Costa.
2023
June 23-24, 2023 – Ponca City
Check out pictures in the Photo Gallery!
2022
June 11, 2022 – University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond
Oklahoma Federation of Music Clubs 