ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT GUIDE DOWN A NEW PATH: JEROD TATE CREDITS CIM FOR NURTURING A DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI By Zachary Lewis
“I’m very proud of CIM and of being a graduate of the school. I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of many. It’s like I’m in a big group hug.”
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (photo by Shevaun Williams)
One of several people to whom Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (MM ’00, Erb/Pastor) gives credit for receiving CIM’s 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award is an audience member at a recital of his in Washington, DC. It was she, after all, who directed him to CIM in the first place. Had she not encouraged him, he knows, the citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma wouldn’t have thought of CIM, let alone have applied, enrolled or graduated with a double major. He certainly wouldn’t have won the school’s highest honor, and even more importantly, he wouldn’t have found the musical home that forged him into the accomplished pianist, composer and teacher he is today. “My relationship with CIM runs deep,” says Tate, who now lives in Oklahoma City. “I’m very proud of CIM and of being a graduate of the school. I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of many. It’s like I’m in a big group hug.” Two other important figures in that spiritual embrace are Tate’s teachers at CIM, pianist Elizabeth Pastor and composer Donald Erb, both now deceased. Tate brags on his school-mates and is grateful for the many substantial scores they’ve commissioned from him, but it’s his two mentors, he says, who had the profoundest effect. 18
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