Amy Jo Sawyer, Accordionist and President of the Accordionists & Teachers Guild, Int’l, (ATG), was commissioned by the Salt Creek Chapter of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association to compose music for their “Glorious Grands” Piano Concert presented Oct 8, 2017 on the Campus of the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, (near Chicago).

The Commissioned Music was for Eight Hands (two pianos). The title of the Three Movement piece was “Sweet Salt Creek Suite”. The titles of the movements were: Cotton Candy Waltz, Rocky Road Blues and Toffee Tango. The selections were performed by sixteen piano students on eight “nine foot” Steinway pianos on one large stage. One of the piano instructors, Lemi Yang, from China, also played the accordion. The Salt Creek Chapter asked Amy Jo to include two accordion parts on the Tango, so she wrote parts for Lemi and herself to perform with the eight pianos. The concert featured thirteen groups of pieces by different composers with 245 students and 30 teachers participating. Two performances of the concert were presented to full audiences.

Amy Jo is a Nationally Certified Piano Teacher by the Music Teacher’s National Association (MTNA). She holds BA degrees in Composition & Piano Performance, and a MA in Jazz Keyboard Performance. In 2014 she received the Commissioned Composer Award sponsored by the Illinois State Music Teachers Association for original Piano solos.

Amy Jo is an accomplished accordionist and has performed with the St. Louis Symphony on many occasions including accompanying famous Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, on his appearance with the St. Louis Symphony. She has performed the accordion parts to many movies with the St. Louis Symphony including, “The Godfather’, “Ratatouille” and “Lord of the Rings”. She performed “Fiddler On The roof” with the St. Louis Muny Orchestra in the 2016 season.
She recently performed at the “Cotati Accordion Festival” in California where she played with Bass and Drums as a Jazz Trio.

She has written many compositions for the accordion including orchestra, solo and duets. One of her original orchestra compositions, a Tango – “Juntos” (Together) was performed in Castelfidardo, Italy, in 2011 by the Frank Marocco orchestra. It was also performed by the Las Vegas Convention Orchestra at the Las Vegas Convention directed by Joan Sommers in 2012. The duet version of “Juntos” is the headliner piece on a CD by Dallas, Texas, accordionists, Elena & Gregory Fainshtein. In 2011, she wrote “Recuerdos” (Memories) after receiving a request by Joan Sommers to write an Orchestra piece celebrating Joan’s 50 years of conducting Accordion Orchestras at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, (UMKC). Some of her original music has been performed by the President’s Quintet at ATG Festivals (www.accordions.com/atg).

Amy Jo has two accordion CDs available: “According To Amy”, original selections along with standard Jazz repertoire, and Classically Amy”, all Classical selections, many of which are piano pieces that have been arranged for accordion by Amy Jo. She maintains a private studio in her home in O’Fallon, IL, where she teaches Piano, Accordion, Composition & Theory.

For further information: AmyJo@apci.net