Robert Beadell

(1925, Chicago,IL - 1994, Lincoln,NE), USA

Robert Beadell’s professional life as a composer spanned forty-five years and included myriad awards, commissions, and performances with such distinguished organizations and institutions as the American Choral Directors Association, Lincoln (NE) Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Duke University, Kansas State University, Northwestern University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he taught for thirty-six years. The scope of his writing included small instrumental ensembles, film scores, voice, chorus, band, piano, and orchestral works, many of which are heavily influenced by jazz. Embracing the educational sphere as a forum for the performance of new music in the 20th century, Beadell accepted commissions as both composer and arranger from numerous public schools in the USA. One highlight from this aspect of his career is his choral arrangement of Stephen Sondheim’s "Send in the Clowns" – it sold almost 500,000 copies. Beadell’s choral works were published by Alliance, Associated, Belwin, Canyon, Concordia, G. Schirmer, Mills, Plymouth, Shawnee, and Summy-Birchard. Of his circa fifty original choral and choral-orchestral compositions, selections include: “Blow, Prairie Wind,” “Elegy for a Dead Soldier,” “Five Introits,” “Four Modern Carols,” “The Friendly Beasts,” “Full Fathom Five,” “Great All in All,” “Holy Sonnet,” “I Am the Alpha and the Omega,” “Make a Joyful Noise,” “Mirage Flats: Homage to Sandoz,” “Our God, Creator,” “Out of the Depths,” “A Prayer to the Night,” “Prairie Trilogy,” “Sigh No More Ladies,” “Trilogy,” “Vidi Aquam,” and “Where Is The Nightingale.” Beadell earned his BM and MM degrees from Northwestern University. He also studied with Leo Sowerby at the American Conservatory and with Darius Milhaud at Mills College. As a professional clarinetist and saxophonist, Beadell performed with the Ray Anthony Orchestra, Lincoln (NE) Symphony Orchestra, and as a freelancer in Chicago and Omaha.

(Source : Sean Burton, sburton@fastmail.fm)

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