Tommy Joe Anderson

TOMMY JOE ANDERSON (born Bristol, Virginia, 1947) began his piano studies in Wytheville, Virginia with Loretta Hannon and Rudolph BeCraft. He continued study with Henry Black at Shenandoah Conservatory of Music receiving the Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and with Herman Godes at West Virginia University receiving the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition. His primary composition teacher was Thomas Canning. He has been awarded commissions for compositions from the West Virginia Arts and Humanities Council and the Music Teachers National Association & Georgia Music Teachers Association. He was presented with the President’s Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 1990 from DeKalb College for his composition Sonata No. 3, Op. 30 for Alto/Soprano Saxophone & Piano and also frequently receives ASCAP Plus awards. Since his retirement in 2004, the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra premiered his War Chant, Op. 32 in Decatur, Georgia (June 2009), and The Globe Saxophone Quartet premiered his Quartet for Saxophones, Op. 37 at the World Saxophone Congress XVI in St. Andrews, Scotland (July 2012).

Dr. Anderson is a Professor Emeritus of Music from Georgia Perimeter College-Clarkston Campus in Clarkston, GA, where he taught piano, composition and music theory. He was also the Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts at GPC from 1996-2002.

Since coming to Georgia in 1976, Dr. Anderson has been an active member of many music organizations including the Georgia Music Teachers Association. He served as the GMTA President from 1986-88, Vice President for Program from 1979-82, and he served as the chairman of the GMTA Student Composition Contest and the GMTA/MTNA Commissioning Program from 1979 to 1999. He held a similar position as composition chair for the Southern Division of MTNA from 1988-1990.

From 1979-81, he was also the chairman of the piano division of the Georgia Music Educators Association. Other offices held have included vice president for programs for the Georgia Association of Music Theorists and a board member of the Atlanta Music Club Scholarship Committee and their Vice President in charge of concerts, 1986-88.

Currently, he is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, National Association of Composers-USA and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Many of Dr. Anderson’s compositions are published and receive numerous performances in the USA and Europe. Dr. Anderson is the president of ACA Digital Recording, Inc. and is the producer of THE ATLANTA MUSIC SCENE heard weekly over Atlanta’s WABE-FM 90.1. He also produces the Spivey Soiree (Sept.-Nov.) and is one of the two recording engineers for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra broadcast recordings also heard weekly (Feb.-July) on Atlanta’s WABE-FM 90.1, state-wide on Georgia Public Broadcasting and nationally on American Public Media’s Performance Today and SymphonyCast. As a recording engineer and producer, Dr. Anderson’s work has been favorably reviewed in Fanfare, American Record Guide, The Atlanta Audio Society Newsletter, Atlanta 30306 and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He won the 1990 National Public Radio Lucien Wulsin Award for the Best National Performance-Small Ensemble for his recording of the King’s Singers at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall. During the Atlanta Olympics, he was the recording engineer for Performance Today’s CD Spirit of ‘96. ACA Digital Recording [www.acadigitalrecording.com] now has over 100 releases of classical chamber music, solo recitals, choral works and traditional jazz being distributed nationally by Albany Music Distributors with downloads distributed through The Orchard.