Newspapers / N.C. Essay (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Feb. 1, 1973, edition 1 / Page 11
Part of N.C. Essay (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Page 12 North Carolina School of the Arts ChanceUor’s Opera To Be Spring Spectacular: ROBERT WARD A PROFILE In 1966, after Vittorio Giannini, the first president of the school, had died, Robert Ward was appointed as President. Other than the fact that he won the Pulitzer Prize for the “Crucible”, what do we know about him; this man who comes to school by day and leaves by night; this man of a thousand faces; this veritable enigma of human design; what, in truth, do we know about him? Absolutely nothing. (Well, naturally, with even the best of intentions one can exaggerate.) Luckily, this poor, underpaid reporter was able, while staying well within the confines of the law, to scrape up a few facts of less than doubtful repute regarding our mentor. Here they are: Ward was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 13, 1917. From the Cleveland public schools he went to the Eastman School of Music where he studied composition under Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. Then, at the Juilliard Graduate School, he studied composition with Frederick Jacobi and conducting with Albert Stoessel Schenk- man. In 1942, after working with Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center, he entered the Army and became leader of the 7th Infantry Division band, with which he spent several years in the Pacific. He was awarded the bronze star for his service in the army. While stationed in Hawaii, he met Mary Raymond Benedict, a high school teacher of speech, dramatics, and English literature, who had gone to the Pacific as a Red Cross worker. They were married in Hawaii. Mrs. Ward has collaberated with husband on the texts of some of his choral works. After his Army service. Ward taught at Columbia and then at the Juilliard School, where he was assistant to the president from 1954-56. In the latter year he became Executive Vice- President of Galaxy Music Corp., a position that brought him a wide acquaintance among composers, conductors and performers all over the world. These teaching and publishing activities, however, did not keep him from composing. Many of Ward’s works were written on commission, during his two years as a Guggenheim fellow, or under a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition to being the conductor of the Doctor’s Orchestral Society for five years, Ward has been a guest conductor with many orchestras in the United States and abroad, and he was the first American composer ever to conduct a premiere of his opera in a German opera house. This occurred when “The Crucible” was presented at the Heissisches - Staats Theater in Wiesbaden in 1963. When the New York City Opera gave the premiere of “The Crucible” on October 25,1961, the New York Times critic was cool, the Herald- Tribune critic enthusiastic. After hearing the opera a second time, Winthrop Sargent wrote in the New Yorker magazine: “Again, the beauty, nobility, skill, power and utter sincerity of Mr. Ward’s music bowled me over. If a finer opera has been written since the days of Strauss and Puccini, I have not heard it... “The Crucible” is comparable to the great masterworks of the classic repertory, and I like to think of its also as an example of the true music of the future. It is, in short, music of the most inspired sort, written by a master of his craft.” The opera won not only the Pulitzer Prize but also the New York Music Critics Circle Citation. Ward’s other opera is “He Who Gets Slapped”. It is in three acts and is based on a play by Andreyev. Ward has also written an operetta, “The Lady From Colorado”. Ward has also written music for young folks. He wrote “Jonathon and the Gingery Snare” for the New York Young People’s concerts. When the New York Philharmonic played it in 1950, Philip Hamburger in The New Yorker called it a “fetching novelty”. Some of his more recent works include a string quartet, a cantata for chorus, orchestra and narrator, and his first concerto for piano and orchestra which has been recorded by the Stuttgart Orchestra with Marjorie Mitchell as soloist. He is at present working on a new opera, commissioned by the New York City Opera, The plot will be taken from Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” but instead of occurring in Norway, it will take place in Charleston, S.C. after the Civil War. It will be called “Claudia Lagare” and if we’re lucky, it should be ready for per formance by next season. Ward’s music has been called typically American. This is because he has a deep interest in folk song and jazz. But he also acknowledges a considerable debt to the classic masters and the revolutionary com posers of the present century. “Now as in the past,” he says about his own musical outlook, “ a composer must find a way to express some part at least of the society into which it has been his fate to be bom... Hence, whether we like it or not, my generation will have the task of reworking the materials which the revolution has given us while at the same time reapplying the basic p-inciples which have again been clarified.” Clifford Young
N.C. Essay (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 1, 1973, edition 1
11
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75