13 Facts About William Schuman

1.

William Howard Schuman was an American composer and arts administrator.

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2.

William Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel William Schuman.

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3.

William Schuman was named after the 27th U S president, William Howard Taft, though his family preferred to call him Bill.

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4.

William Schuman played the violin and banjo as a child, but his overwhelming passion was baseball.

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5.

William Schuman wrote popular songs with E B Marks Jr, a friend he had met long before at summer camp.

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6.

Around that time, William Schuman met lyricist Frank Loesser and wrote some forty songs with him.

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7.

William Schuman dropped out of school and quit his part-time job to study music at the Malkin Conservatory with Max Persin and Charles Haubiel.

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8.

William Schuman won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943 for his Cantata No 2.

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9.

William Schuman left in 1961 to succeed John D Rockefeller III as president of Lincoln Center, a position he held until 1969.

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10.

In 1971, William Schuman was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture.

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11.

William Schuman won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1985 citing "more than half a century of contribution to American music as composer and educational leader" and he received the National Medal of Arts in 1987.

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12.

William Schuman died at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City at age 81, following hip surgery.

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13.

William Schuman arranged Charles Ives' organ piece Variations on "America" for orchestra in 1963, in which version it is better known.

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