Featured Musican: Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate
Updated: Aug 31
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate is a Chickasaw classical composer and pianist whose music carries Chickasaw language, history and stories into orchestras, operas, ballets and chamber works. His composition Lowak Shoppala’, meaning “Fire and Light,” brings together symphonic music, Chickasaw singing and dancing, spoken narration and theatrical storytelling.
Tate’s music demonstrates that Indigenous classical composition is not a contradiction. He draws from specific Chickasaw melodies, rhythms, stories and language, developing them through the compositional techniques he learned as a classically trained musician.
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, A Name That Carries Family History
Before discussing his music, Tate often helps interviewers pronounce his middle name.
Impichchaachaaha’ is his inherited traditional Chickasaw house name. Tate translates the name as “his high corncrib.” A corncrib was a small structure built above the ground on stilts to protect stored corn and other vegetables from foraging animals.
Tate explains that Chickasaw house names once functioned in a way similar to European surnames. A person might be addressed by a European family name or by the name of their Chickasaw house. Using Impichchaachaaha’ publicly keeps that family identity present whenever his name appears on a concert program, recording or composition.
Becoming a Chickasaw Classical Composer
Tate was raised in an artistic family in Norman, Oklahoma. His father, Charles Tate, was Chickasaw and worked as a lawyer and judge. He was also a classically trained pianist and baritone. Tate’s mother, Dr. Patricia Tate, was a dancer and choreographer of Manx Irish heritage.
Tate began studying piano as a child and later earned a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from Northwestern University. He continued his studies in piano performance and composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
At first, Tate did not see a clear connection between his Chickasaw identity and his training as a classical pianist. That changed when his mother asked him to compose the score for Winter Moons, a ballet based on Indigenous stories from the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains.
The ballet premiered in 1992, when Tate was 23. It became the beginning of an artistic direction that has now continued for more than three decades.
Tate recognized that many celebrated European composers had built their work from the stories, languages and musical traditions of their own peoples. Tchaikovsky drew from Russian culture. Bartók studied and transformed the folk music of Eastern Europe. Stravinsky used Russian stories and musical structures.
Tate understood that Chickasaw and other Indigenous cultural materials could be approached with the same seriousness, discipline and creative range. He has described his artistic identity directly: “I am a Chickasaw classical composer.”
Fire and Light
Lowak Shoppala’ was commissioned through the American Composers Forum’s Continental Harmony program. Tate conceived, designed and composed the work, which premiered on November 21, 2009, at the Te Ata Theatre at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. Tate conducted the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra.
The work unfolds through eight scenes:
Fire and Light
Double Header
Shell Shaker
Clans
Removal
Spider Brings Fire
Hymn
Double Header and Finale
Together, these scenes move through Chickasaw origin stories, social dances, clan relationships, Removal, Christian hymn traditions and the continuing responsibility to carry Chickasaw culture forward.
The work does not present Chickasaw history as something that ended in the past. Children, dancers, musicians, actors and storytellers become part of its continuation. History is remembered through living voices and bodies.
A Chickasaw Collaboration
Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan wrote the libretto for Lowak Shoppala’. Chickasaw textile artist and designer Margaret Roach Wheeler created clothing for the original production that closely reflected historical Chickasaw dress.
Their contributions are fundamental to the work. Lowak Shoppala’ is a multidisciplinary Chickasaw production shaped through music, poetry, clothing, dance, language and community participation.
Tate has explained that the production was also influenced by Riverdance. Growing up with Chickasaw and Manx Irish family traditions, he was struck by the way Riverdance presented a sequence of scenes drawn from Irish history and culture.
Tate imagined a similarly ambitious production centered on Chickasaw life. His version would use a full orchestra, children’s chorus, vocal soloists, actors, Chickasaw dancers, modern dancers, visual art and spoken narration.
That influence did not make Lowak Shoppala’ an imitation of an Irish production. It helped Tate recognize how a large theatrical work could introduce audiences to the history and creative traditions of a people through movement, sound and story.
From the Stage to a Complete Recording
In 2021, Lowak Shoppala’ received its first complete commercial recording on Azica Records. Tate conducted the Nashville String Machine, joined by the Chickasaw Nation Children’s Chorus and Dance Troupe.
The recording also features vocal soloists Stephen Clark, Chelsea Owen and Meghan Vera Starling, with narration by Lynne Moroney, Wes Studi and Richard Ray Whitman.
The album allowed listeners beyond a live theatrical production to experience the full musical work. It preserved the scale of Tate’s original vision, including orchestral music, Chickasaw language, children’s voices, narration and music connected to Chickasaw stories and social dances.
When the accompanying interview was shared in 2021, the recording was new. The composition itself had premiered in 2009 and grew from the artistic direction Tate began establishing with Winter Moons in 1992.
The project described as “30 years in the making” was therefore more than one album. It represented nearly three decades of Tate building a place for Indigenous languages, stories and musicians within contemporary classical music.
Chickasaw Language on the Concert Stage
Tate’s use of Chickasaw language is not decorative. The language, stories and musical structures belong to a particular people and carry their own histories.
Hearing Chickasaw within an orchestral or operatic production also changes who and what can occupy the concert stage. The language does not appear as an artifact being interpreted by an outside institution. It is being used by Chickasaw artists to tell Chickasaw stories.
Tate has continued this work through Loksi’ Shaali’ (Shell Shaker), his Chickasaw language opera. The opera tells the story of Loksi’, a girl who leaves her village and later returns with turtle shells for ceremonial dancing.
The Chickasaw Nation describes Loksi’ Shaali’ as the first opera sung entirely in a First American language. In 2026, selections from the work were chosen for presentation at OPERA America’s annual conference.
Creating Opportunities for Future Composers
Tate’s work extends beyond his own compositions. He is a founding composition instructor for the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy and has taught Indigenous students in several Native communities.
His approach does not require younger Native composers to reproduce his musical style. Tate encourages students to determine their own artistic identities and decide how their cultures, experiences and interests will enter their work.
That distinction is important. Indigenous artists should not be expected to create only recognizably “Native” work for outside audiences. Tate chose to build his music around Chickasaw and other Indigenous cultures, but he has emphasized that each artist must make that decision independently.
Recognition and Continuing Influence
Tate received a regional Emmy Award in 2011 for his work on the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority documentary The Science of Composing. He was appointed a cultural ambassador by the United States Department of State and inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame in 2022.
His compositions have been performed by ensembles including the National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Oklahoma City Philharmonic.
Those achievements represent an important expansion of Indigenous presence within American classical music. Tate’s compositions make room for tribal languages, histories, community performers and Indigenous collaborators within institutions that have frequently treated classical music as an exclusively European inheritance.
At the Museum of Indigenous People, Tate’s work offers another way to understand Indigenous art as a living practice. Cultural knowledge can be carried through a weaving, sculpture, painting, poem, dance, theatrical production or symphonic score. Each form can connect generations while allowing Indigenous artists and communities to determine how their stories enter the future.
Listen to Jerod Tate’s Music
Plan your Visit
The Museum of Indigenous People is located at 147 North Arizona Avenue in Prescott, Arizona. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM and is closed Sunday.
Sources
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate: Lowak Shoppala’ (Fire and Light)
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate: Meaning and Pronunciation of Impichchaachaaha’
National Endowment for the Arts: Art Talk with Composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate
WOSU Public Media: New Recording Spotlights Chickasaw History and Culture
Chickasaw Nation: Tate’s Loksi’ Shaali’ Selected for OPERA America Conference
