H. Owen Reed

Herbert Owen Reed (June 17, 1910 – January 6, 2014) was an American composer, conductor, and author. Early life and education Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father’s playing of the old-time fiddle, accompanied by his mother at the piano. In addition to his childhood with musically-inclined parents, he was also attracted to the popular piano music of the 1920s, such as the novelty piano tunes of Zez Confrey, and his family’s player piano, which played popular tunes. He studied piano with Odessa’s only piano teacher, Mrs. Felts, who attempted to interest him in the music of Bach and Beethoven. In 1937 he enrolled at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he studied composition with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, conducting with Paul White, musicology with Howard Gleason, and music theory with Allen I. McHose. He received a Ph.D. in composition in 1939. In 1942, at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, he studied composition with Bohuslav Martinů, and contemporary music with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Stanley Chappel. In the summer of 1947, he studied composition with Roy Harris at