Douglas Townsend (New York, November 8, 1921 – New York, August 1, 2012) was an American composer and musicologist. Born in Manhattan, Townsend became interested in composition while a student at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, 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 taught himself composition, counterpoint and orchestration. In 1941, he began studying composition privately, with

Tibor Serly Tibor Serly (; Losonc, Kingdom of Hungary, 25 November 1901 – London, 8 October 1978) was a Hungarian violist, violinist, and composer. Serly was the son of Lajos Serly, a pupil of Franz Liszt and a composer of songs and operettas in the ...

Stefan Wolpe Stefan Wolpe (25 August 1902, Berlin – 4 April 1972, New York City) was a German-Jewish-American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz mo ...

, Aaron Copland,

Otto Luening Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music. Luening was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene, a conducto ...

and

Felix Greissle Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, S ...

, among others. Townsend taught at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

, CUNY (1958–69),

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in the Bronx borough of New York City. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within CUNY in September 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehma ...

, CUNY (1970–71), the University of Bridgeport (Connecticut; 1973–5) and Purchase College (also known as SUNY Purchase) (1973–6). From 1977 to 1980, he was editor of Musical Heritage Review. Townsend’s research into 18th- and 19th-century music has resulted in editions, recordings and performances, most notably of a Carl Czerny

overture Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") in music was originally the instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overt ...

and a

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

Sigismund Neukomm Sigismond Neukomm or Sigismund Ritter von Neukomm fter ennoblement as a knight">ennoblement.html" ;"title="fter ennoblement">fter ennoblement as a knight(10 July 1778, in Salzburg – 3 April 1858, in Paris) was an Austrian composer and pianist ...

. He received research grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund (1965) and the New York State Council on the Arts (1975).Lance W. Brunner. The ''

New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', edited by Stanley Sadie (1992). and Townsend’s compositions include several orchestral works, chamber music pieces, choral works, film and television scores, three operettas, and one opera. While still a high school student, he won a nationwide contest for student composers;

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely re ...

led the CBS Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast performance of the winning composition, ''Contra Dances''. Seven years later, Townsend achieved public notice as a composer when pianist

Ray Lev Ray Lev (May 8, 1912 – May 20, 1968) was an American classical pianist. One year after her birth in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, her father, a synagogue cantor, and mother, a concert singer, brought her to the United States. Life Lev’s early pia ...

performed the premiere of his ''Sonatina No. 1'' at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

. Townsend's own compositions generally used traditional forms and tonality. Townsend was married twice. His first marriage was to Anne-Marie Findley, and produced three children, Jonathan, Adam, and April. His second wife, Jean, survived him, as do his children from his first marriage.

References

External links

Biographical sketch of Douglas Townsend at American Music Center web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Townsend, Douglas 1921 births 2012 deaths Lehman College faculty Brooklyn College faculty State University of New York faculty University of Bridgeport American male classical composers American classical composers American opera composers 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century classical composers 20th-century American musicologists 21st-century American composers 21st-century American male musicians 21st-century classical composers 21st-century American musicologists Classical musicians from New York (state) Musicians from New York City People from Manhattan