Musicians - William Schuman

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	Musicians - William Schuman

William Howard Schuman (August 4, 1910 - February 15, 1992) was an American composer and music administrator.

Born in the Bronx in New York City, Schuman played the violin and banjo as a child. As a young man he formed a dance band and wrote songs with his friend Frank Loesser. He went on to study at New York University's School of Commerce, but dropped out to study music instead, Roy Harris being among his teachers. Harris brought Schuman to the attention of the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who championed many of his works.

In 1943 he won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Music for his cantata, A Free Song. From 1935-45, he taught composition at Sarah Lawrence College. In 1945, he became president of the Juilliard School of Music, founding the Juilliard String Quartet while there. He left in 1961 to take up the directorship of Lincoln Center.

Among Schuman's better known works are ten symphonies, of which nos. 3 (1941) and 6 (1948) stand out, a concerto for violin (1947 rev. 1959), the New England Triptych (1956, based on melodies by William Billings), the American Festival Overture (1939), the ballets Undertow (1945) and Judith (1949), and two operas , The Mighty Casey (1953, based on Ernest L. Thayer's Casey at the Bat), and A Question of Taste (1989, after a short story by Roald Dahl) . He also arranged Charles Ives' organ piece Variations on "America" for orchestra in 1963, in which version it is better known. Another popular work by William Schuman is his George Washington Bridge (1952), for concert band.

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