Howard Hanson

Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981) was an American composer, conductor, educator and music theorist. As director for forty years of the Eastman School of Music, he raised its quality and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American classical music. In 1944, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 4, and received numerous other awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Music in 1946. Early life and education Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrant parents, Hans and Hilma (née Eckstrom) Hanson. In his youth he studied music with his mother. Later, he studied at Luther College in Wahoo, receiving a diploma in 1911, then at the Institute of Musical Art, the forerunner of the Juilliard School, in New York City, where he studied with the composer and music theorist Percy Goetschius in 1914. Afterward he attended Northwestern University, where he studied composition with church music expert Peter C. Lutkin and Arne Oldberg. Hanson also studied piano, cello, and trombone. He earned his BA degree in music from Northwestern in 1916, and began his teaching career as a teacher’s assistan