Alice Yost Jordan

"It is safe to say that on any given Sunday morning her compositions are widely heard throughout the United States."- Sherrill Milnes

Internationally known, Alice Yost Jordan is one of the most distinguished and published American composers. She is best known for her choral and organ works numbering over 200, which have sold over 250,000 copies. A recital song, Take Joy Home (text: Jean Ingelow) commissioned by Sherrill Milnes, of Metropolitan Opera fame, and Jon Spong, pianist, received world-wide exposure on concert tours, was performed at the White House for a State Dinner in 1983 and is recorded on compact disc. Her arrangement of America The Beautiful, commissioned by the Iowa High School Music Association for the All-State Chorus and Orchestra, opens the All-State Festival Concert biennially. Other works commissioned by churches, universities and organizations across the United States total 40. Born in Davenport December 31, 1916, but a life-long resident of Des Moines, she graduated from Drake University, where she studied composition at the undergraduate and graduate levels with the late Dr. Francis J. Pyle. Grand View College conferred the Honorary Degree: Doctor of Letters in 1986. With her husband, the late Dr. Frank B. Jordan, former dean of the College of Fine Arts at Drake, she has been active in the cultural and educational life of Des Moines. Jordan was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.