The Roger Nixon Living Music Initiative
Created in honor of the eminent Bay Area composer Roger Nixon (1921-2009) by his five children, the Roger Nixon Living Music Initiative advances SFCA’s commitment to new American choral music by providing funding for SFCA’s composer commissioning programs.
In 1999, Nixon became SFCA’s first Composer-in-Residence. SFCA’s long collaboration with him resulted in 12 world premieres, recordings of 4 works, and over 40 performances of his pieces, 18 of which are dedicated to SFCA. We continue to be grateful for our decades-long association with Roger and his family, and for their championing of our music-making.
Nixon had a lifelong passion for the composition and performance of new choral works. As a professor at SF State University, he taught composition and theory for 30 years. He received his M.A. in composition in 1949 and Ph.D. in education in 1952, both from UC Berkeley. Nixon was well known in the Bay Area and beyond for his dedicated mentoring of young composers, and for his operas and for his works for choir, orchestra, solo piano, chamber ensembles, and especially concert band.
His career as a composer was distinguished: three of his orchestral works were premiered by the San Francisco Symphony, and he received numerous prestigious composition awards, including a Phelan Award, the Neil A. Kjos Memorial Award, and five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1973 he won the American Bandmasters Association’s Ostwald Award for his composition Festival Fanfare March, and he was elected to the American Bandmasters Association in 1979.
Nixon’s musical style was a blend of many influences – from his studies with Arnold Schoenberg to the distinctive and colorful musical references to California history. He said, “I am a native Californian and have lived all my life there… California communities, festivals, patrons, conductors, teachers, performing organizations, individual performers, composers, and students – all have served as inspirations for my compositions.”