Allan Blank

Allan Blank (December 27, 1925 – November 12, 2013) was an American composer who has more than 60 published works. He attended the Juilliard School of Music (1945–47) and obtained a bachelor’s degree from Washington Square College (1948). He received a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota (1970) and also studied at the University of Iowa. He was a violinist in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1950–52). He taught composition at Western Illinois University (1966–68), Paterson State Teachers College (1968–70), Lehman College (1970–77), and at Virginia Commonwealth University (1978–96). In 1985 he received a commission from the New York State Council on the Arts’ Presenting Organization to compose “Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet” for the Roxbury Chamber Players. Other awards mentioned in his University of Akron Bierce Library Archives composer profile are: First Prize in the George Eastman Competition (1985) sponsored by the Eastman School of Music for his Duo for Bassoon & Piano, and a grant (1985) from the National Endowment for the Arts to support his one-act opera, The Magic Bonbons. The Virginia Shakespeare Festival at Williamsburg commissioned Blank to write m