In the Past

I started writing songs and playing boogie-woogie during High School in Tampa. After flying B-17s for the 8th Air Force, I enrolled in the University of Alabama as a Music major. I studied Piano with Roy McAllister, Theory with Guerney Kennedy, Orchestration with Byron Arnold, and Composition with Paul Newell. The University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ottokar Cadek, performed my Sonata for Orchestra in my Senior year. I submitted the score and a wire recording at one of the early meetings of the Alabama Composers League and was awarded their First Prize for Composition. 
I then went to Florida State University and began a study of Physics, with the hope of creating an electronic orchestra that could be used by composers who usually have little chance of having a performance of their scores. While there, I almost sabotaged my Physics career by agreeing to write the music for a musical comedy which was performed by FSU's Sandspur Productions. Vernon Raines, who later became the Conductor of the Meridian Symphony, conducted the orchestra for the performances.
Upon graduation, I accepted a position at the nearby Navy Laboratory in Panama City, FL.  During my career there I found time to write three musicals …. One a comedy performed by the MDL Players.  Secondly, a drama, based on Christopher Fry's The Boy With a Cart,  performed by the St. Andrews Episcopal Players and Choir, then music for the Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie.

When I retired from the Lab I started building an Electronic Orchestra based on circuitry published by Bob Moog in Audio Engineering. With the advent of MIDI controlled synthesizers, I got back to writing music …. with the joy of hearing it performed.

1 comment:

  1. And you did it all beautifully and with a good deal of class, if I may say, Henriesque. Little did we know we played a part in very nearly sabotaging your physics career -- all those years, plots, words & notes ago.

    ReplyDelete