Warren Benson

Warren Frank Benson (January 26, 1924 – October 6, 2005) was an American composer. His compositions consist mostly of music for wind instruments and percussion. His most notable piece is titled The Leaves Are Falling (1964). Biography Benson was born in Detroit in 1924, and was a graduate of Cass Technical High School. He was a professional performer by the age of 14, when he played timpani in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Ormandy, Reiner, Goossens, Bernstein, and others while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. From 1950 to 1952, Benson was awarded two successive Fulbright grants to teach at Anatolia College in Salonika, Greece. There he established a five-year bilingual music curriculum and organized the Anatolia College Chorale, the first scholastic co-educational choral group in that country. After 14 years at Ithaca College (where, in 1953, he organized the first touring percussion ensemble in the eastern United States – and the second worldwide), Benson became professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music. During his tenure there (1967–1993), he was honored with an Alumni Citation for Excellence, the Kilbourn professorship for distinguished teachi