Jay Althouse
Jay Althouse received a B.S. degree in Music Education and an M.Ed. degree in Music from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, from which he received the school's Distinguished Alumni award in 2004. For eight years he served as a rights and licenses administrator for a major educational music publisher. During that time he served a term on the Executive Board of the Music Publishers Association of America. For twenty years Jay was a choral editor for Alfred Music Publishing.
As a composer of choral music, Jay has over 700 works in print for choirs of all levels. He is a writer member of ASCAP and is a regular recipient of the ASCAP Special Award for his compositions in the area of standard music. Jay has also co-written several songbooks, musicals and cantatas with his wife, Sally K. Albrecht, and also compiled and arranged a number of highly regarded vocal solo collections, including Folk Songs for Solo Singers, Volumes 1 and 2. He is the co-writer of two best-selling Alfred books The Complete Choral Warm-up Book and Accent on Composers, Volumes 1 and 2. More recently, he completed three reproducible texts for the music classroom: Ready to Read Music, 60 Music Quizzes, and One-Page Composer Bios. All are available from Alfred.
Sally and Jay have been happily married since 1985, and currently enjoy living in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Jay has served on the board of the North Carolina Master Chorale and on the advisory board of the Folk Art Society of America. Sally and Jay were thrilled and honored to have their composition I Hear America Singing! performed during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration Ceremonies. In his spare time, Jay enjoys cooking (and eating).
