H. Owen Reed
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H. Owen Reed (b. Herbert Owen Reed, Odessa, Missouri, June 17, 1910) is an American composer, conductor, and author.
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[edit] Education
Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father's playing of the old-time fiddle (accompanied by his mother at the piano). He was also attracted to the popular piano music of the 1920s (such as those by Zez Confrey), as well as his family's player piano, which also played popular tunes. He also studied piano with Odessa's only piano teacher, Mrs. Felts, who attempted to interest him in the music of Bach and Beethoven.
Following high school, Reed studied music at the University of Missouri beginning in 1929, transferring in 1933 to Louisiana State University where he received his Bachelor of Music (1934) and Master of Music (1936) degrees, both in music composition (studying with Helen Gunderson), as well as a Bachelor of Arts (1937) degree in French. While a freshman at the University of Missouri he became interested in jazz big band performance, later arranging for the university's big band.
In 1937 he enrolled at the Eastman School of Music (studying composition with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, conducting with Paul White, musicology with Howard Gleason, and music theory with Allen I. McHose), receiving a Ph.D. in composition in 1939. In 1942, at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood), Massachusetts, he studied composition with Bohuslav Martinů, and contemporary music with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Stanley Chappel. In the summer of 1947, he studied composition with Roy Harris at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and also attended lessons with Arnold Schoenberg.
[edit] College teaching
Reed taught at Michigan State University from 1939 to 1976, and since that year has served as professor emeritus.
Many of Reed's students have gone on to fame as composers and arrangers; these include Loris Chobanian, Dinos Constantinides, Clare Fischer, David Gillingham, Adolphus Hailstork, Jere Hutcheson, David Maslanka, and Greg Steinke. Most of these reunited to celebrate Reed's 95th birthday at Michigan State University in the summer of 2005.
[edit] Compositions
Just as Béla Bartók had investigated the traditional musics of Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Turkey, using these as inspirations for his own original works, Reed has similarly devoted much study to the traditional musics of North America. Many of his works feature material derived from the Mexican, Native American, Anglo-American, and African American cultures.
Reed's best known and most widely performed work is the three-movement concert band composition La Fiesta Mexicana (1949), composed with the support of a Guggenheim fellowship. The work is based on Aztec, Roman Catholic, mariachi, and other musics Reed heard while in Mexico City, Cuernavaca, and Chapala, Mexico for six months (1948-49).
Reed later studied Native American musics in Taos, New Mexico, and eventually composed a trilogy of chamber operas based on Native American legends: Earth Trapped (Sioux, 1960), Living Solid Face (Algonquin, 1974), and Butterfly Girl and Mirage Boy (Hopi-Aztec, 1980). His band composition Missouri Shindig (1951) is based on the American fiddle tune "Give the Fiddler a Dram," which his father had particularly enjoyed playing. Spiritual (1947), another work for band, is based on Reed's recollection of overhearing the exuberant religious expression of African American churchgoers while passing by their churches as a child.
Reed's music is published by G. Schirmer, Warner Brothers, Ballerbach Music, Harrock Hall Music, Triplo Press, Allyn & Bacon, Boosey & Hawkes, Edwin A. Fleisher, EMI Mills, Neil A. Kjos, Ludwig, and H O Reed Music.
[edit] Writings
In addition to his compositions, Reed has published eight books on the subjects of musical composition and music theory. His scores, recordings, correspondence, and other papers have been deposited in the Michigan State University Manuscript Collection, in the Special Collections Unit of the Michigan State University Libraries.
