31 Facts About Howard Hanson

Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator and music theorist.

Howard Hanson earned his BA degree in music from Northwestern in 1916, and began his teaching career as a teacher's assistant.

In 1916, Howard Hanson was hired for his first full-time position as a music theory and composition teacher at the College of the Pacific in California.

In 1920, Howard Hanson composed The California Forest Play, his earliest work to receive national attention.

Howard Hanson wrote a number of orchestral and chamber works during his years in California, including Concerto da Camera, Symphonic Legend, Symphonic Rhapsody, various solo piano works, such as Two Yuletide Pieces, and the Scandinavian Suite, which celebrated his Lutheran and Scandinavian heritage.

In 1921 Howard Hanson was the first winner of the American Academy in Rome's "Rome Prize" in musical composition, awarded for both The California Forest Play and his symphonic poem Before the Dawn.

Thanks to the award, Howard Hanson lived in Italy for three years.

Howard Hanson made his premiere conducting the New York Symphony Orchestra in his tone poem North and West.

In 1924, Eastman chose Howard Hanson to be director of the Eastman School of Music.

Howard Hanson held the position of director for forty years, during which he created one of the most prestigious music schools in America.

Howard Hanson accomplished this by improving the curriculum, bringing in better teachers, and refining the school's orchestras.

Howard Hanson offered a position to Bartok teaching composition at Eastman, but Bartok declined as he did not believe that one could teach composition.

Howard Hanson followed that in 1931 by establishing the annual Festivals of American Music.

Howard Hanson engaged his student ensembles to present a similar series for the CBS radio network which he entitled Milestones in American Music.

For thirty years from 1939 to 1969 Howard Hanson made over one hundred recordings for RCA Victor, Mercury Records and Columbia Records with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, not only of his own works, but those of other American composers such as: Charles Ives, Wayne Barlow, John Alden Carpenter, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Alan Hovhaness, Homer Keller, John Knowles Paine, Burrill Phillips, Walter Piston, Bernard Rogers, Roger Sessions, Leo Sowerby and William Grant Still.

Howard Hanson estimated that more than 2000 works by over 500 American composers were premiered during his tenure at the Eastman School.

Howard Hanson conducted its official premier with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC before an audience of 23,000.

Howard Hanson served as a member of the Music Advisory Panel of the American National Theatre and Academy along with Virgil Thomson, William Schuman and Milton Katims.

In 1960, Howard Hanson published a book Harmonic Materials of Modern Music.

Howard Hanson was elected as a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1935, President of the Music Teachers' National Association from 1929 to 1930, and President of the National Association of Schools of Music from 1935 to 1939.

Howard Hanson was a frequent conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at the Eastman Theater in Rochester, New York.

Howard Hanson took the Eastman Philharmonia on a European tour which passed through Paris, Cairo, Moscow, and Vienna, among other cities.

Howard Hanson met Margaret Elizabeth Nelson at her parents' summer home on Lake Chautauqua at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.

Howard Hanson dedicated the Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings, to her; the piece was his musical marriage proposal, as he could not find the spoken words to propose to her.

Apparently, Howard Hanson told Gerhardt that, of all the available recordings, he found Gerhardt's to be the most 'sympathetic'.

Howard Hanson died at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York at the age of 84.

Howard Hanson was survived by his wife Margaret Elizabeth Nelson.

Howard Hanson's music has been described as part of the Neo-Romantic movement in music which endeavored to continue the traditions of the Romantic era into the 20th century.

Howard Hanson has been identified by critics as an "American Neoromantic composer par excellence" whose compositions were conceived in the grand romantic tradition of Antonin Dvorak.

The composer and critic David Owens indicated that Howard Hanson clearly embraced the use of tonal beauty in his compositions in order to give expression to a conservative musical ideal.

Recordings by Howard Hanson conducting his own compositions with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra include:.