September/October 2010
Around the Quads
In Memoriam
PHOTO: WILLIAM E. BARKSDALEJack H. Beeson, the MacDowell Professor of Music (Emeritus), died on June 6, 2010. He was 88.
Beeson, a noted composer, began his affiliation with Columbia in 1945 and chaired the Department of Music from 1968–72. He played crucial roles in the founding of the D.M.A. program in composition and the Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology. Beeson was named the MacDowell Professor of Music in 1967 and awarded an honorary degree from Columbia in 2002.
Born on July 15, 1921, in Muncie, Ind., Beeson studied piano as a child and was drawn to opera early through the Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. He earned two degrees at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, then moved to New York City, where he took private lessons with Béla Bartók and studied piano and conducting at Columbia. At Columbia, Beeson often was the rehearsal pianist for the workshop that was supported by the Alice M. Ditson Fund and that gave the premieres of operas by Gian Carlo Menotti, Virgil Thomson, Ernst Bacon and other composers. Thanks to a Prix de Rome and a Fulbright fellowship, Beeson lived in Rome from 1948–50; there, he composed his first opera, Jonah, adapted from a Paul Goodman play.
Among Beeson’s contributions to American music more broadly, he was co-president of Composers Recordings; chairman of the board of the Composers’ Forum; member of the board of governors of the American Composers Alliance and the board of ASCAP; treasurer and v.p. for music at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he was a distinguished member; and member of the Advisory Committee of the Alice M. Ditson Fund for 50 years, many of them as secretary.
Composer and author Nicolas Slonimsky described Beeson’s approach to composition as “enlightened utilitarianism.” That characterization delighted Beeson, who, The New York Times noted, “eschewed dogma, never fell in with any camp and drew from any style or technique that suited his musical and dramatic ends, especially in his 10 operatic works, which include Hello Out There, The Sweet Bye and Bye and Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines.”
Among Beeson’s best known works are the operas Lizzie Borden and Dr. Heidegger, but he also was noted for symphonic and song composition. He recently had completed two works; the last, Kilroy Was Here, is a song setting for baritone and piano of a Peter Viereck poem.
Beeson is survived by his wife, Nora; and daughter, Miranda. A son, Christopher, died in 1976. Condolences may be sent to the Department of Music, Columbia University, 621 Dodge Hall, MC 1813, New York, NY 10027.
Lisa Palladino