Composition Faculty
Dr. Konstantinos Karathanasis is a Professor of Composition and Music Technology at the University of Oklahoma School of Music, and a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Fellow for 2020. He writes music for fixed media (both acousmatic and soundscape), instruments and live electronics, and mixed media. He has also collaborated with visual artists to create sound installations and multimedia compositions. He draws inspiration from Poetry, Artistic cinema, Abstract painting, Mysticism, Greek Philosophy, Mythology, and the writings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.
His electroacoustic compositions received awards in international competitions, such as Bourges (France), SEAMUS/ASCAP (USA), SIME (France) and Musica Viva (Czech Republic). He has been performed throughout the world at such festivals as the International Computer Music Conference, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music annual conference, the International Electronic Music Festival SYNTHESE in Bourges, France; the MUSICACOUSTICA festival in Beijing, China, the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik in Witten, Germany; the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival in Gainesville; in several annual conferences of the Society for the ElectroAcoustic Music in the United States; the Musica Viva festival in Lisbon, Portugal; the European Sound and Music Computing; the Bienal Internacional de Musica Electroacustica in Sao Paolo; the Seoul International Computer Music Festival; the Australasian Computer Music Conference; and in numerous juried electroacoustic music concerts worldwide.
Recordings of his music are released by SEAMUS, ICMA, Musica Nova, Innova and HELMCA. He has been invited to give lectures on his music and concerts at the Contemporary Music & Research Center, Athens, Greece; University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; Lewis University, Chicago IL; Ionian University, Corfu, Greece; University of Texas, Austin TX; MACCM at Bowling Green State University, OH; Tulsa University, Tulsa, OK; Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK; Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ; University of Utah at Salt Lake City, UT; University of Central Missouri at Warrensburg, MO; University of North Texas at Denton, TX; Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea; Oklahoma City University, OKC, OK; University of Athens, Greece.
Dr. Karathanasis has been elected twice as the Vice President for Membership of the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US (SEAMUS). He directs the OU School of Music Computer Music Studio and the Music Technology curriculum.
- Ph.D. University at Buffalo (2006)
- B.M. Ionian University, Corfu Greece (1999)
- Piano Diploma, National Conservatory, Athens, Greece (1995)
Dr. Marvin L. Lamb is Henry Zarrow Presidential Professor of Music Composition and former Dean of the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts at OU. Lamb's compositions have been performed widely in Europe, North and South America and Japan. Lamb has been featured on PBS broadcasts in New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas and has received commissions from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, the New York Chamber Orchestra and the Idaho Symphony Orchestra. His works have been performed by the Czech National Symphony, the Orchestra del Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as the Atlanta, Dallas, Knoxville and St. Louis symphony orchestras, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra, the U.S. Army Band and the Nashville Contemporary Brass Quintet. Lamb has received fellowships and teaching awards from ASCAP, the Mellon Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Texas Composers Forum, the Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Science Foundation. He has twice received composition fellowships to the Charles Ives Center for American Music. Lamb's vocal, chamber and electronic music is published principally by Carl Fischer and is included in the Fleisher Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. His music is recorded on The Saxophone Alone by concert artist Neal Ramsay, Music from the Meadows (Redwood Records), The University of New Mexico Brass Ouintet (Crystal CD), Heavy Metal (Mark Records), and Paul Freeman Introduces... (Albany CD). Lamb's articles concerning arts education policy, new music and new music ensembles have appeared in numerous jouirnals. As an arts consultant, Lamb has served in a leadership capacity for educational organizations at the state, regional and national levels, including as a senior evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Music. Before coming to the University of Oklahoma, Lamb was Dean and Yeager Professor of Music at the School of Music of Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
- BM (Theory & Composition) - Sam Houston State University
- MM (Theory & Composition) - University of North Texas
- DMA (Composition & Performance) - University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a devoted father, classical composer, 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 2024 USA Fellowship awardee, a 2024 New World Symphony BLUE commission recipient, a 2023 and 2024 National Endowment of the Arts commission recipient, a 2023 Barlow Endowment commission recipient, 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 is the founding composition instructor for the First Americans Museum Native Maestro Composition Academy, 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 “their 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. Learn more at www.jerodtate.com.
- MM Piano Performance and Composition - Cleveland Institute of Music
- BM Piano Performance
