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William Howard Schuman
Info
08/04/1910
New York, New York
02/15/1992
New York, New York
USA
20th Century
Vocal, Orchestral, Chamber, Film/Television Music, Musical Theatre, Choral, Piano, Wind Ensemble, Keyboard
New York, New York
02/15/1992
New York, New York
USA
20th Century
Vocal, Orchestral, Chamber, Film/Television Music, Musical Theatre, Choral, Piano, Wind Ensemble, Keyboard
Biography
William Schumann was a song plugger, attended business school, formed a dance band and played violin and banjo. He composed 40 songs with Frank Loesser, heard his first symphony concert at age 20 and studied at Juilliard with Roy Harris. His music incorporated American jazz and folk traditions.
His composition Secular Cantata No. 2 A Free Song received the first Pulitzer Prize in music in 1943. The Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliff Choral Society, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky conducting performed it on March 26, 1943.
Schuman became President of the Juilliard School in 1945 and the first president of the newly founded Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1961. He was also Director of the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, National Educational Television, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Main Works
Opera:
The Mighty Casey (1953, based on Ernest L. Thayer's Casey at the Bat)
Ballet:
Judith (1949 for Martha Graham)
Orchestral:
10 Symphonies
Credendum (1955, commissioned by UNESCO)
New England Triptych (1956, based on melodies by William Billings)
Concertos:
Piano Concerto (1943)
Violin Concerto (1947, revised 1959)
Band:
George Washington Bridge
New England Triptych
Arrangements:
Variations on America