Ward, Robert, 1917-2013

Originally composed for string quartet, 1937; arranged 1937-40. First performance Detroit, July 1941, Merrill String Ensemble, Celia Merrill conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Composed 1937 for a symphony in E minor, not completed. First performance Rochester, New York, April 1938, Rochester Civic Orchestra, Howard Hanson conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Composer of operas and other works who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962. Chancellor of the N. C. School of the Arts and a faculty member at Columbia and Duke Universities.

Robert Ward (1917- ) is an American composer who wrote an opera based on Leonid Andreev's play "Tot, kto poluchaet poshchechiny"

Composer of operas and other works who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962. Chancellor of the N.C. School of the Arts and a faculty member at Columbia and Duke Universities.

Composed 1943. First performance New York City, 5 May 1945, Juilliard Graduate School Orchestra, Richard Bales conductor.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Completed 1941. First complete performance New York, 10 May 1941, Juilliard Graduate School Orchestra, the composer conducting. Received the Juilliard Publication Award, 1942.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

Robert Ward is a composer of operas and other works who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962. He was chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts from 1967 to 1975, and is now Professor of Music Emeritus at Duke University.

Ward was born in 1917 and began composing as a student. He attended Eastman School of Music and Juilliard School of Music in the 1930s and early 1940s before joining the United States Army during World War II. During the war he served as a band director, and was stationed in the Pacific.

Following the war, Ward taught at Juilliard and Columbia, and continued composing and conducting. His second opera, The Crucible, based on Arthur Miller's play, premiered in 1961 and became his best-known work. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for The Crucible in 1962.

Ward eventually left New York and became Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1967; he stepped down to the composition faculty in 1975. He joined Duke University as the Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music in 1979, retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1987. He continues to compose and live in Durham, North Carolina.