Cleveland Reporter

Cleveland Institute of Music recently issued the following announcement.

They already received their degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Soon, they’ll also hold some of the school’s highest honors.  

Ahead of Commencement this year, during Honors Convocation at 10am on Friday, May 13, CIM will bestow special awards on three alumni. The Distinguished Alumni Award will 

be presented to composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (MM ’00, Pastor/Erb) and posthumously to trumpeter Ryan Anthony (BM ’91, MM ’93, Zauder). The Distinguished Alumni 

Award honors alumni who have attained the highest stature in their field. Pianist Michelle Cann (BM ’09, MM ’10, Schenly/D. Shapiro) will receive the 2022 Alumni Achievement 

Award, which recognizes significant professional contributions to the field. The three awardees join a storied group of past alumni award recipients, spanning CIM’s 100-year 

history. Cann and Tate will speak at the convocation and perform that evening at the second annual Luminaries Benefit Concert along with Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts 

recipient Jennifer Koh. More information about Luminaries will be announced later this spring.

Scott Harrison, CIM’s executive vice president and provost, praised the nominees, citing the breadth of their talents and the profound, ongoing impact of their work in classical 

music. “CIM could not be prouder of these exceptional members of our community,” Harrison said. “All of our graduates are remarkable, but the choice to grant these three our 

Distinguished Alumni and Alumni Achievement awards was not difficult. Tate, Cann and Anthony took their CIM training and applied it in daring, inventive ways to improve our field 

and empower communities, reflecting not only on themselves but also on CIM and our faculty. Their contributions to art and music have expanded the cultural world and made our 

society more curious and empathetic.”

Learn More About This Year's Award Recipients

Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate

Pianist-composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. He is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, and his music 

reflects the heritage of multiple tribes including the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Navajo, Cherokee, Lakota, Hopi and Shoshone. His work has been commissioned and performed by 

major orchestras and festivals across the US, including the Dallas Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He is guest 

composer/conductor/pianist for the San Francisco Symphony Currents program Thunder Song: American Indian Musical Cultures and was recently guest composer for a 

Metropolitan Museum of Art Balcony Bar program. Tate also has received multiple commissions from Chamber Music America and the American Composers Forum, and his music 

has been featured on the HBO series Westworld. He records regularly with Azica Records, the Grammy Award-winning label based in Cleveland. Before earning a dual master’s 

degree in performance and composition from CIM, Tate studied piano performance at Northwestern University. He also is a committed educator, working regularly with Native 

students and having founded the Chickasaw Chamber Music Festival. CIM granted him an Alumni Achievement Award in 2006.

Ryan Anthony

Until his death in June 2020 at age 51, trumpeter Ryan Anthony was principal trumpet of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, having joined the orchestra in 2004. Prior to that in 2000, 

the Yamaha artist became a member of the world-renowned brass ensemble Canadian Brass. Anthony’s career began at age 16, when he won the Seventeen Magazine/General 

Motors Concerto Competition. He then went on to appear with major orchestras and festivals all over the world, and to take part in numerous recordings with the Center City Brass 

Quintet and Burning River Brass, of which he also was a member. As an educator, Anthony was professor of practice in trumpet and chair of the winds and brass department at 

Southern Methodist University and from 1998-2000 was assistant professor of trumpet at Oberlin College Conservatory. In 2019, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement 

Award from the International Trumpet Guild joining previous recipients Doc Severinsen, Louis Armstrong and Maurice Andre. He also edited and recorded both the Haydn and 

Hummel trumpet concertos for Hal Leonard Publishing. The Distinguished Alumni Award is Anthony’s second notable honor from CIM. In 2001, he received the school’s Alumni 

Achievement Award. After his diagnosis of multiple myeloma in 2012, Anthony founded the non-profit CancerBlows/The Ryan Anthony Foundation which to date has raised over $3 

million toward cancer research through concerts featuring brass musicians.

Michelle Cann

Hailed as a “compelling, sparkling virtuoso,” pianist Michelle Cann is in demand by orchestras across the US. Since her orchestral debut at age 14, she has appeared with the 

orchestras of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Detroit and St. Louis, among others. She made her Cleveland Orchestra debut in July 2021. She also appears regularly as a 

chamber musician, performing at major venues worldwide, and has appeared as co-host and collaborative pianist on the NPR program From the Top. Cann is a champion of the 

music of Florence Price, having given the New York premiere of Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished orchestra in July 2016. In addition to CIM’s 

Alumni Achievement Award, Cann received the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor from the Sphinx Organization, and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. In 

2019, Cann served as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s MAC Music Innovator, in recognition of her role as an African-American classical musician who embodies artistry, 

innovation and a commitment to education and community engagement. In addition to performing, Cann holds the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies at the Curtis I

nstitute of Music.

Original source can be found here.