Joseph R. Wood
Encyclopedia
Joseph Wood was an American composer
and music educator
.
, Wood attended Bucknell University
from 1932-1934. Afterwords, he began his formal music training at the Juilliard Institute of Musical Arts
where he received a diploma in piano performance in 1936. Impressed with his work, the Juilliard School
offered him a full four-year Juilliard fellowship from 1936-40. He continued his piano studies with Bernard Wagenear, completing his Bachelors degree in 1949. In 1942 he won first prize for his opera The Mother in the Juilliard Opera Competition. On the basis of winning the opera prize he was given a Ditson Award from Columbia University
, on which he lived and wrote music for a year. He went on to study composition with Otto Luening
at Columbia University
. He graduated with a M.A. in music composition in 1950.
During his time at Juilliard, Wood would periodically take time off from school to pursue other interests. He was the staff composer at the Chekov Theatre Studio in Manhattan
from 1939-1941 where he wrote a wide variety of scores for many productions directed by Michael Chekhov
. He also worked as a freelance composer and arranger in New York City
from 1941–1943 and from 1946-1950. During this time period Wood was primarily working as a composer for radio and television commercials
, writing many of the tunes Madison Avenue
used to sell everything from soap to television dramas. He wrote charts for many dance bands, the most famous of which was his arrangement of "Chiquita Banana
" that he did for Xavier Cugat
. He also wrote many of the orchestral arrangements used for the first Muzak
recordings.
From 1943-46, Wood joined the special services as a member of the U.S. Army
, serving in the South Pacific
during World War II
. Fond of telling stories, Wood would later amuse friends with tales of his experiences in the army, especially those about the oddity of meeting many celebrities in remote and dangerous places like Okinawa
and other "Pacific hotspots".
In 1950 Wood, under the invitation of David Robertson
, became a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music
where he remained a teacher of music theory and composition until his retirement in 1985. Wood, along with Richard Hoffmann
and Walter Aschaffenburg, initiated the conservatory major in composition in 1956. They also established the Oberlin Contemporary Music Festival, which was held in February of each year until 1971. It brought to the campus such distinguished composers as Roger Sessions
, Wallingford Riegger
, Ernest Krenek, Leon Kirchner
, and, in 1963, Igor Stravinsky
, as well as many outstanding performers and commentators.
Wood was a guest composer at the Villa Montalvo
in 1957 and was awarded a Huntington Hartford
fellowship in 1960, and was a fellow eight times at the MacDowell Colony
. In 1966 and 1973 he received H. H. Powers travel grants from Oberlin College
. He also worked with some of the 20th century’s best-known composers and musicians, including Frederick Loewe, of Lerner and Loewe
. He arranged the choral music for Brigadoon
and other Loewe works.
Wood's compositions were sought after by many musicians, and he received many commissions. He wrote numerous chamber music
pieces including a piano trio
in 1937 and a viola sonata
in 1938. He also wrote four string quartet
s between 1942-1978 which have been performed by such notable ensembles as the NBC Quartet, the Gordon Quartet, the Piastro Quartet, and the New Hungarian Quartet
. Other notable works include a violin sonata
(1947) and a piano quintet
(1956). Throughout his life he wrote a considerable number of choral
pieces which are still being programmed, including a Te Deum
written on the occasion of Oberlin's sesquicentennial for the Oberlin College Choir and Robert Fountain
.
His symphony orchestra
compositions include a Concerto for Chamber Orchestra, a Poem for Orchestra (1950), a Concerto for Viola and Piano with orchestra in 1970 premiered by the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by José Serebrier
, a Violin Concerto and a Divertimento for Piano and small orchestra from 1959. He also wrote three symphonies, one each in 1939, 1952, and 1956. After the premiere of his third symphony in 1957, the critic of the New York Herald Tribune
wrote that the work "was a thoroughly distinguished and handsome creation with such an internal and external appeal that it would be no exaggeration to place it in the very top rank of American symphonies." The NBC Symphony Orchestra
premiered his Overture to Twelfth Night on the eve of Pearl Harbor
. Arguably, his most important piece was a large ballet-cantata commissioned by the Draco Foundation and written to a scenario by Evelyn Eaton
entitled The Progression.
Joseph Wood died in Auburn, Alabama
, on June 3, 2000. He is survived by his two daughters, Lynne and Lorna, and four grandchildren.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and music educator
Music education
Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...
.
Biography
Born in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, Wood attended Bucknell University
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...
from 1932-1934. Afterwords, he began his formal music training at the Juilliard Institute of Musical Arts
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
where he received a diploma in piano performance in 1936. Impressed with his work, the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
offered him a full four-year Juilliard fellowship from 1936-40. He continued his piano studies with Bernard Wagenear, completing his Bachelors degree in 1949. In 1942 he won first prize for his opera The Mother in the Juilliard Opera Competition. On the basis of winning the opera prize he was given a Ditson Award from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, on which he lived and wrote music for a year. He went on to study composition with Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He graduated with a M.A. in music composition in 1950.
During his time at Juilliard, Wood would periodically take time off from school to pursue other interests. He was the staff composer at the Chekov Theatre Studio in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
from 1939-1941 where he wrote a wide variety of scores for many productions directed by Michael Chekhov
Michael Chekhov
Michael Chekhov was a Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner. His acting technique has been used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, and Robert Stack. Constantin Stanislavski referred to him as his most brilliant student...
. He also worked as a freelance composer and arranger in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
from 1941–1943 and from 1946-1950. During this time period Wood was primarily working as a composer for radio and television commercials
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
, writing many of the tunes Madison Avenue
Madison Avenue (Manhattan)
Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square to the Madison Avenue Bridge at 138th Street. In doing so, it passes through Midtown, the Upper East Side , Spanish Harlem, and...
used to sell everything from soap to television dramas. He wrote charts for many dance bands, the most famous of which was his arrangement of "Chiquita Banana
Chiquita Brands International
Chiquita Brands International Inc. is an American producer and distributor of bananas and other produce, under a variety of subsidiary brand names, collectively known as Chiquita. Other brands include Fresh Express salads, which it purchased from Performance Food Group in 2005...
" that he did for Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
. He also wrote many of the orchestral arrangements used for the first Muzak
Elevator music
Elevator music refers to instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, telephone systems , cruise ships, airports, doctors' and dentists' offices, and elevators...
recordings.
From 1943-46, Wood joined the special services as a member of the U.S. Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, serving in the South Pacific
South West Pacific theatre of World War II
The South West Pacific Theatre, technically the South West Pacific Area, between 1942 and 1945, was one of two designated area commands and war theatres enumerated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff of World War II in the Pacific region....
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Fond of telling stories, Wood would later amuse friends with tales of his experiences in the army, especially those about the oddity of meeting many celebrities in remote and dangerous places like Okinawa
Okinawa Prefecture
is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...
and other "Pacific hotspots".
In 1950 Wood, under the invitation of David Robertson
David Robertson (conductor)
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.-Early life:...
, became a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, located on the campus of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, was founded in 1865 and is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Students of Oberlin Conservatory enter a very broad network within the music world, as the school's alumni...
where he remained a teacher of music theory and composition until his retirement in 1985. Wood, along with Richard Hoffmann
Richárd Hoffmann
Richárd Hoffmann is a Hungarian footballer who plays for Békéscsabai Előre FC as striker.-External links:*...
and Walter Aschaffenburg, initiated the conservatory major in composition in 1956. They also established the Oberlin Contemporary Music Festival, which was held in February of each year until 1971. It brought to the campus such distinguished composers as Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
, Wallingford Riegger
Wallingford Riegger
Wallingford Constantine Riegger was a prolific American music composer, well known for orchestral and modern dance music, and film scores...
, Ernest Krenek, Leon Kirchner
Leon Kirchner
Leon Kirchner was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 3.Kirchner was born in Brooklyn, New York...
, and, in 1963, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, as well as many outstanding performers and commentators.
Wood was a guest composer at the Villa Montalvo
Villa Montalvo
Villa Montalvo is an Italian Mediterranean style mansion nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, in Saratoga, California, United States. It was constructed from 1912 to 1914 by California statesman and businessman James Duval Phelan. After Phelan's death, it was donated to the state...
in 1957 and was awarded a Huntington Hartford
Huntington Hartford
George Huntington Hartford II was an American businessman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and art collector. The heir to the A&P supermarket fortune, he owned Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and had numerous other business and real estate interests over his lifetime including the Oil Shale Corporation...
fellowship in 1960, and was a fellow eight times at the MacDowell Colony
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
. In 1966 and 1973 he received H. H. Powers travel grants from Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
. He also worked with some of the 20th century’s best-known composers and musicians, including Frederick Loewe, of Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe are the duo of lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Brigadoon....
. He arranged the choral music for Brigadoon
Brigadoon
Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Songs from the musical, such as "Almost Like Being in Love" have become standards....
and other Loewe works.
Wood's compositions were sought after by many musicians, and he received many commissions. He wrote numerous chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
pieces including a piano trio
Piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...
in 1937 and a viola sonata
Viola sonata
The viola sonata is a sonata for viola, sometimes with other instruments, usually piano. The earliest viola sonatas are difficult to date for a number of reasons:...
in 1938. He also wrote four string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s between 1942-1978 which have been performed by such notable ensembles as the NBC Quartet, the Gordon Quartet, the Piastro Quartet, and the New Hungarian Quartet
New Hungarian Quartet
The New Hungarian Quartet was founded in 1972. It is separate and distinct from the well-known string quartet, the Hungarian Quartet, though the violist in both groups was the same.- Personnel :...
. Other notable works include a violin sonata
Violin sonata
A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...
(1947) and a piano quintet
Piano quintet
In European classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly piano, two violins, viola, and cello . Among the most frequently performed piano quintets are those by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák...
(1956). Throughout his life he wrote a considerable number of choral
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
pieces which are still being programmed, including a Te Deum
Te Deum
The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
written on the occasion of Oberlin's sesquicentennial for the Oberlin College Choir and Robert Fountain
Robert Fountain
Robert Fountain is a British calculating prodigy. He won the inaugural MSO Mental Calculation World Championship in 1998 and the inaugural Mental Calculation World Cup in 2004. In 1999 he became the first Grandmaster of Mental Calculation.- References :...
.
His symphony orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
compositions include a Concerto for Chamber Orchestra, a Poem for Orchestra (1950), a Concerto for Viola and Piano with orchestra in 1970 premiered by the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra
Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra
The Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1938 and its current music director is Victor H...
conducted by José Serebrier
José Serebrier
José Serebrier is a Uruguayan conductor and composer. He married American soprano Carole Farley in 1969.- Youth :Serebrier was born in Montevideo, and first conducted an orchestra at the age of eleven, while at school. The school orchestra toured the country, which meant he was able to notch up...
, a Violin Concerto and a Divertimento for Piano and small orchestra from 1959. He also wrote three symphonies, one each in 1939, 1952, and 1956. After the premiere of his third symphony in 1957, the critic of the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
wrote that the work "was a thoroughly distinguished and handsome creation with such an internal and external appeal that it would be no exaggeration to place it in the very top rank of American symphonies." The NBC Symphony Orchestra
NBC Symphony Orchestra
The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra established by David Sarnoff of the National Broadcasting Company especially for conductor Arturo Toscanini...
premiered his Overture to Twelfth Night on the eve of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
. Arguably, his most important piece was a large ballet-cantata commissioned by the Draco Foundation and written to a scenario by Evelyn Eaton
Evelyn Eaton
Evelyn Sybil Mary Eaton was a Canadian novelist, short-story writer, poet and academic known for her early novels set in New France, and later writings which explored the spirituality of the western Amerindian peoples....
entitled The Progression.
Joseph Wood died in Auburn, Alabama
Auburn, Alabama
Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama with a 2010 population of 53,380. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area...
, on June 3, 2000. He is survived by his two daughters, Lynne and Lorna, and four grandchildren.