Members of the North American Saxophone Alliance:

The NASA Executive Committee was quite busy in late February and March with discussion concerning our performance competitions, the mechanics of the competitions, prize amounts, application fees, and adjudicator compensation. In addition to the three existing competitions (jazz, classical, and quartet), we created three new competitions that will be held at our next Biennial Conference at Arizona State University in March of 2012.

Hoping to do more to involve high school students in the life of the North American Saxophone Alliance, we created two new competitions: the High School Classical Performance Competition and High School Jazz Saxophone Performance Competition. David Dees and Carrie Koffman are working to create the final guidelines on the High School Classical Competition, and Gene Smith is working to do the same for the High School Jazz Competition. We plan to advertise these exciting new performance opportunities soon.

In addition to these two new high school age competitions, we created a North American Saxophone Alliance Composition Competition with a $1000 prize. John Sampen has graciously agreed to be the competition coordinator and is working to finish the guidelines. The performance medium for this new competition will be piano and saxophone. We plan to advertise this soon, and you can help us by spreading the word about this opportunity to your composer friends. Please check the NASA Website for details about all six of our competitions and watch for information via the NASA Forums.

The website for the 16th World Saxophone Congress at the University of St. Andrews is located at wscxvi.com/main. This Saxophone Congress will be a great opportunity for saxophonists to travel, meet new friends, play golf, and enjoy the saxophone!

Best wishes to all,

John Nichol, President
North American Saxophone Alliance