12 Facts About Alec Wilder

Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder was an American composer and author.

Alec Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, to a prominent family; the Alec Wilder Building downtown bears the family's name and his maternal grandfather, and namesake, was prominent banker Alexander Lafayette Chew.

Alec Wilder attended several prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager.

Alec Wilder was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes and never received his degree.

Alec Wilder was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and others who helped develop the American popular music canon.

Alec Wilder occasionally wrote his own lyrics, including for his most famous song "I'll Be Around".

Alec Wilder wrote eleven operas; one of which, Miss Chicken Little, was commissioned for television by CBS.

Alec Wilder contributed two tone poems, "Grey" and "Blue", to the 1956 album, Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color.

Alec Wilder was featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the middle to late 1970s.

Alec Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a jigsaw puzzle.

Alec Wilder loved to talk and most of all, laugh.

Alec Wilder died in Gainesville, Florida, from lung cancer in December 1980, and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Avon, New York, outside Rochester.