SDMTA - South Dakota Music Teachers Association

Every year SDMTA hosts performance and composition competitions for students of member teachers.

MTNA competitions advance from state through divisional to national. National winners receive cash awards, plaques and certificates, and often additional awards from their corporate sponsors. The state performance competitions are held in conjunction with our annual fall conference. The composition competitions are adjudicated prior to the fall conference with winners being recognized at the conference. Rules and repertoire requirements are available through www.mtna.org.

SDMTA competitions are non-advancing with slightly less rigorous repertoire requirements than MTNA. All competitors perform at the state conference in the fall. Rules and repertoire requirements are contained in the SDMTA Handbook for Student Performance Competitions.

Download the 2010 SDMTA Handbook. The handbook now includes the MTNA Music Release Form.

Instructions for filling out and submitting 2010 forms on your computer are included with the form.

Click the appropriate links below for the 2010 application forms.

Download the 2010 Application (Fillable Version)

Download the 2010 Application (MS Word document)

List of 2010 competition chairs.

2010 Competitions Schedule - Northern State University

Please check back in October for the 2010 competition schedule.

For a complete list of the state winners in both MTNA and SDMTA competitions, click the corresponding link below:

2009
2008
2007
2006
2005

SDMTA offers student scholarship support through its J. Earl Lee Fund. This endowment was established as a tribute to J. Earl Lee, longtime chair of the piano department of Augustana College in Sioux Falls and a founding member of SDMTA. Dr. Lee educated many of the piano teachers in the state, either through his work at Augustana or through his generous hours of continuing education offered to anyone willing to learn. He presented workshops for music teachers and shared his expertise willingly with anyone who stopped to visit with him. Most of all he encouraged and supported developing students, young and old, and cheered on his peers in their efforts to raise the level of music education in our state.

The monies raised for the J. Earl Lee Fund are used to subsidize travel to the divisional and national performance competitions for South Dakota student winners.

Annual Traveling Plaque Award: At the 2000 convention a new honor program was launched to benefit the MTNA/SDMTA Foundation. Contributors nominate a significant musical predecessor through a raffle purchase. A name is put on each ticket. There is no limit to the number of tickets that may be purchased. The winning ticket is drawn at the IMTF dinner and the name on it subsequently engraved on a traveling plaque which may be displayed in the contributor’s studio for one year or be given to the honoree.

The name selected at the 2006 conference was Veronika Lakstigala of Sioux Falls. Veronika was nominated by Marie Schlosser in recognition of her encouragement in Marie’s process of achieving MTNA Professional Certification.

SDMTA is proud to announce that at the 2007 Music Teachers National Conference, Dr. David T. Piersel, Professor Emeritus of Music at South Dakota State University and a long-time member and leader of the South Dakota Music Teachers Association was honored by his peers as an MTNA Fellow. Click here for further information.

Thanks to the enthusiasm and steadfastness of Foundation Chair Susanne Skyrm, fund raising efforts for The J. Earl Lee Fund and the MNTA Foundation enjoy continued success. The winning of a day trip on the Missouri with Missouri River Expeditions added excitement to the life of one family attending the conference.