Bernard Rogers (4 February 1893 – 24 May 1968) was an American composer. His best known work is ''The Passion'', an oratorio written in 1942.

Life and career

Rogers was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He studied with

Arthur Farwell Arthur Farwell (April 23, 1872 – January 20, 1952) was an American composer, conductor, educationalist, lithographer, esoteric savant, and music publisher. Interested in American Indian music, he became associated with the Indianist movement ...

Ernest Bloch Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. As well as producing music ...

Percy Goetschius Percy Goetschius (August 10, 1853 – October 29, 1943) was an American music theorist and teacher who won international fame in the teaching of composition. Career Goetschius was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He was encouraged by Ureli Corelli ...

, and

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

. He taught at the

Cleveland Institute of Music The Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) is a private music conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1920 by Ernest Bloch, it enrolls 325 students in the conservatory and approximately 1,500 students in the preparatory and continuing educatio ...

The Hartt School The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, that offers degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. Founded in 1920 by Julius Hartt and ...

, and the

Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music (B.M ...

. His pupils included

Stephen Albert Stephen Joel Albert (6 February 1941 – 27 December 1992) was an American composer. He is best known for his Symphony No. 1 ''RiverRun'' (1983) and Cello Concerto (1990) written for Yo-Yo Ma, both of which won a Pulitzer Prize for Music. He d ...

Dominick Argento Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas '' Postcard from Morocco'', '' Miss Havisham's Fire'', ''The Masque of An ...

Jacob Avshalomov Jacob Avshalomov (March 28, 1919 – April 25, 2013) was a composer and conductor. Early life and education Jacob Avshalomov was born on March 28, 1919, in Tsingtao, China. Note: Profile by David Campbell. His father was Aaron Avshalomov, the ...

William Bergsma William Laurence Bergsma (April 1, 1921 – March 18, 1994) was an American composer and teacher. He was long associated with Juilliard School, where he taught composition, until he moved to the University of Washington as head of their music ...

David Borden David Russell Borden (born December 25, 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American composer and keyboard player of minimalist music. In 1969, with the support of Robert Moog, he founded the synthesizer ensemble Mother Mallard's Portable Maste ...

, Will Gay Bottje, David Diamond,

Walter Hartley Walter Sinclair Hartley (February 21, 1927 – June 30, 2016) was an American composer of contemporary ( classical) music. Biography and education He was born in Washington, D.C., began composing at age five and became seriously dedicated to i ...

Ronald Lo Presti Ronald is a masculine given name derived from the Old Norse ''Rögnvaldr'', Hanks; Hardcastle; Hodges (2006) p. 234; Hanks; Hodges (2003) § Ronald. or possibly from Old English '' Regenweald''. In some cases ''Ronald'' is an Anglicised form of ...

Ulysses Kay Ulysses Simpson Kay (January 7, 1917 in Tucson, Arizona, Tucson, Arizona – May 20, 1995 in Englewood, New Jersey, Englewood, New Jersey) was an American composer. His music is mostly neoclassicism, neoclassical in style. Life and career Kay, the ...

Louis Mennini Louis Alfred Mennini (November 18, 1920, Erie, Pennsylvania – February 22, 2000) was an American composer, music educator, and university administrator. Life and career Born in Erie, Pennsylvania on November 18, 1920, Mennini was the son of Amal ...

John La Montaine John Maynard La Montaine, also later LaMontaine, (March 17, 1920 – April 29, 2013) was an American pianist and composer, born in Oak Park, Illinois, who won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Piano Concerto No. 1 "In Time of War" (1958), ...

W. Francis McBeth William Francis McBeth (March 9, 1933 – January 6, 2012) was an American composer, whose wind band works are highly respected. His primary musical influences included Clifton Williams, Bernard Rogers, and Howard Hanson. The popularity of his ...

, Ron Nelson,

Burrill Phillips Leroy Burrill Phillips (November 9, 1907 – June 22, 1988) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. Biography Phillips was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He studied at the College of Music at the University of Denver with Edwin Stringham and at ...

Gardner Read Gardner Read (January 2, 1913 in Evanston, Illinois – November 10, 2005 in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts) was an American composer and musical scholar. His first musical studies were in piano and organ, and she also took lessons in coun ...

H. Owen Reed Herbert Owen Reed (June 17, 1910 – January 6, 2014) was an American composer, conductor, and author. Personal life Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father's playing of the old-time fiddle ...

, Robert Ward,

John Weinzweig John Jacob Weinzweig, (March 11, 1913 – August 24, 2006) was a Canadian composer of classical music. Weinzweig was born in Toronto. He went to Harbord Collegiate Institute, and studied music at the university. In 1937, he left for the United ...

Norma Wendelburg Norma Ruth Wendelburg (March 26, 1918July 26, 2016) was an American composer, Fulbright scholar, pianist and teacher. Life Wendelburg was born in Stafford, Kansas, and won a scholarship to Bethany College (Kansas) where she received a B.M. d ...

, Richard Lane and

Clifton Williams Clifton Curtis Williams Jr. (September 26, 1932 – October 5, 1967), was an American naval aviator, test pilot, mechanical engineer, major in the United States Marine Corps, and NASA astronaut, who was killed in a plane crash; he never went in ...

among others. He joined the Eastman faculty in 1929.(5 May 1967)
Bernard Rogers Plans to Retire
''

Democrat and Chronicle The ''Democrat and Chronicle'' is a daily newspaper serving the greater Rochester, New York, area. At 245 East Main Street in downtown Rochester, the ''Democrat and Chronicle'' operates under the ownership of Gannett. The paper's production fa ...

'', p. 15 (paywall) He composed five

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

s, five

symphonies A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

, other works for

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

, three

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

choral music A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

and

Lied In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French s ...

er. His one-act opera "The Warrior," for which

Norman Corwin Norman Lewis Corwin (May 3, 1910 – October 18, 2011) was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing. His earliest and biggest successes were in the writing and directing of radio drama during the ...

wrote the libretto, received its premiere at The Metropolitan Opera on January 11, 1947. He was a National Patron of

Delta Omicron Delta Omicron () is a co-ed international professional music honors fraternity whose mission is to promote and support excellence in music and musicianship. History Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity was founded on September 6, 1909 at ...

, an international professional music fraternity.Delta Omicron
Rogers retired from Eastman in 1967. He died in Rochester on May 24, 1968, two days after a heart attack.(25 May 1968)

''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', p. 35 (paywall)(25 February 1993)
Eastman Wind Ensemble remembers Bernard Rogers
''The Greece Post'' (

Greece, New York Greece is a town in Monroe County, New York, United States. A suburb of Rochester, New York, it is the largest town by population in Monroe County, and the second-largest municipality by population in the county, behind only the City of Rochester ...

), p. 23(25 May 1968)
Bernard Rogers Dies, Composer, Teacher
''

'', p. 14 (paywall)

Notable students

References

Citations

Sources

External links

Bernard Rogers' page at Theodore Presser CompanyBernard Rogers Collection
at Eastman School of Music 1893 births 1968 deaths 20th-century classical composers American male classical composers American classical composers Cleveland Institute of Music faculty University of Hartford Hartt School faculty Jewish classical composers Eastman School of Music faculty Pupils of Percy Goetschius Pupils of Ernest Bloch Musicians from New York City Jewish American classical composers American opera composers Male opera composers 20th-century American composers Classical musicians from New York (state) 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American Jews {{US-composer-19thC-stub