ALAN W. SCHMITZ (b. 1950) is Professor of Theory and Composition and Associate Director of the School of Music (Undergraduate Programs) at the University of Northern Iowa. He received bachelor and master of music degrees from the University of New Mexico and the Ph.D. in music theory and composition from Rutgers University. Schmitz’s music is widely performed in the United States and has also been presented in Western Europe, Romania, and Russia. He has received awards, commissions, and grants for composition from several agencies including the Alaska Council of the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, the Waterloo/Cedar Falls (Iowa) Symphony Orchestra, the University of Northern Iowa, and the Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Foundation. Schmitz has also published articles on composing for guitar. A CD of chamber music by Alan Schmitz, entitled 90s Timeflow, was released by Capstone Records in 2001. Another Capstone CD, Lyric Images, guitar music of Alan Schmitz performed by Todd Seeley, was released in 2003. Schmitz recently completed a chamber opera based on Sergei Turgenev’s short story The Song of Triumphant Love, which was performed at the Interpreter’s Theatre in Lang Hall on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa during April, 2008. Excerpts from this work have just been published in UNIVERSITAS, a web based journal of the University of Northern Iowa, at www.uni.edu/universitas