Robert Ward

Robert Ward (born September 13, 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American composer.

Early work and education

Ward was one of five children of the owner of a moving and storage company. He sang in church choirs and local opera theaters when he was a boy. [Kenneth Kreitner, "Robert Ward: A Bio-Bibliography". New York: Greenwood Press (1988): 3] His earliest extant compositions date to 1934, [Kreitner, ibid: 12. Six works from 1934 are listed, compositions which "were completed (or nearly completed), but never formally performed. ... All manuscripts are at Duke University."] at a time he was attending John Adams High School, from which he graduated in 1935. After that, Ward attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where his composition teachers were Bernard Rogers, Howard Hanson, and Edward Royce. Ward received a fellowship and attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York from 1939 to 1942, where he studied composition with Frederick Jacobi, orchestration with Bernard Wagenaar, and conducting with Albert Stoessel and Edgar Schenkman. In the summer of 1941 he studied under Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center in Massachusetts.

From his student days to the end of World War II, Ward produced about forty compositions, of which eleven he later withdrew. Most of those early works are small scale, songs and pieces for piano or chamber ensembles. He completed his First Symphony in 1941, which won the Juilliard Publication Award the following year. Around that time, Ward also wrote a number of reviews and other articles for the magazine "Modern Music" and served on the faculty of Queens College.

In February 1942 Ward joined the U.S. Army, and attended the Army Music School at Fort Myer, being assigned the military occupational specialty of band director. At Fort Riley, Kansas, he wrote a major part of the score to a musical revue called "The Life of Riley". Ward was assigned to the 7th Infantry and sent to the Pacific. For the 7th Infantry Band he wrote a March, and for its dance band he wrote at least two jazz compositions.

During his military service Ward met Mary Raymond Benedict, a Red Cross recreation worker. They married on June 19, 1944, and had five children. They are named Melinda, Jonathan, Mark, Johanna, and Tim. Their children are named Julie, Amy (Melinda), Elizabeth, Nathaniel, Caleb (Jonathan), Nick, Katherine (Mark), Sam, Melinda (Johanna), Gianna and Sophia (Tim).

Major work

Ward earned a Bronze Star for meritorious service in the Aleutian Islands. During his military service Ward managed to compose two serious orchestral compositions, "Adagio and Allegro", first performed in New York in 1944, and "Jubilation: An Overture", which was written mostly on Okinawa, Japan, in 1945, and was premiered at Carnegie Hall by the National Orchestral Association the following spring.

After being discharged from military service at the end of the war, Ward returned to Juilliard, earning postgraduate certificate in 1946 and immediately joining the faculty, teaching there until 1956. He served as an Associate in Music at Columbia University from 1946 to 1948.

Ward wrote his "Second Symphony", dedicated to his wife, in 1947, while living in Nyack, New York. It was premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Kindler. This symphony was quite popular for a few years, in part thanks to Eugene Ormandy playing it with the Philadelphia Orchestra several times and even taking it on tour to Carnegie Hall in New York and Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

Andrew Stiller, in his article on Ward for the "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", describes Ward's musical style as deriving "largely from Hindemith, but also shows the considerable influence of Gershwin".

Ward conducted the Doctors Orchestral Society of New York from 1949 to 1955, wrote his "Third Symphony" and his "First Sonata for Violin and Piano" in 1950, the "Sacred Songs for Pantheists" in 1951, and was music director of the Third Street Music School Settlement from 1952 to 1955, and wrote the "Euphony for Orchestra" in 1954. He left Juilliard in 1956 to become Executive Vice-President of Galaxy Music Corporation and Managing Editor of High Gate Press in New York, positions he maintained until 1967. Ward wrote his "Fourth Symphony" in 1958, the "Prairie Overture" in 1957, the cantata "Earth Shall Be Fair" and the "Divertimento" in 1960.

Ward wrote his first opera to a libretto by Bernard Stambler, "He Who Gets Slapped", and it was premiered in 1956. His next opera, "The Crucible", based on Arthur Miller's play, premiered in 1961, became Ward's best known work. For it Ward received the Pulitzer Prize for music. It is frequently produced around the world.

After the success of "The Crucible", Ward received several commissions for ceremonial works, such as "Hymn and Celebration" in 1962, "Music for a Celebration" in 1963, "Festive Ode" in 1966, "Fiesta Processional" in 1966, and "Music for a Great Occasion" in 1970. During those years he also wrote the cantata, "Sweet Freedom's Song", in 1965; the "Fifth Symphony" in 1976; a "Piano Concerto" in 1968, which was commissioned by the Powder River Foundation for the soloist Marjorie Mitchell; a "Saxophone Concerto" in 1984; and the operas "The Lady from Colorado" in 1964, "Claudia Leqare" in 1977, "Abelard and Heloise" in 1981, "Minutes till Midnight" in 1982, and "Roman Fever" in 1993 (based on the short story of the same name by Edith Wharton. He also wrote chamber music, such as the "First String Quartet" of 1966 and the "Raleigh Divertimento" of 1985.

Later work

In 1967, Ward became Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. He held this post until 1975, when he stepped down to serve as a member of the composition faculty for five more years. In 1978 he came to Duke University as a visiting professor, and there he remained as Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music from 1979 to 1987.

In the fall of 1987, he retired from Duke University as Professor Emeritus, and continues to live and compose in Durham, North Carolina. His most recent composition is the "Savannah" symphony which was premiered in the spring of 2004 by the University of South Carolina Orchestra.

References

External links

* [http://my.voyager.net/~duffie/ward.html Robert Ward interview by Bruce Duffie]
* [http://www.ecspub.com/compWard.html List of Robert Ward compositions published by ECS publishing]