Norman Cazden (Born September 23, 1914 in New York City; died August 18, 1980 in

Bangor, Maine Bangor ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of Penobscot County. The city proper has a population of 31,753, making it the state's 3rd-largest settlement, behind Portland (68,408) and Lewiston (37,121). Modern Bangor ...

) was an American composer. The son of Russian immigrants, he studied first at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...

of Music and New York's City College, and then in 1944 at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

under

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

and

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Ha ...

. While still a student at the Juilliard School, he composed for dance companies and wrote his first symphony. He also performed as a concert pianist and was a piano teacher at Juilliard from 1934 to 1949. After 1941, he worked at Camp Woodland in the Catskill Mountains, where he succeeded Herbert Haufrecht as musical director from 1945 to 1960. Cazden also taught at the

Peabody Conservatory The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...

, the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, and since 1950 at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

in Champaign Urbana. After being investigated by the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

, he lost this position in 1953 and received no academic position for the next 16 years. He gave private piano lessons during this time and worked on research on folk music. Beginning in 1969 he taught at the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...

. Cazden composed an operetta, music for the stage, two symphonies, two chamber music concerts, a brass suite, a suite for oboe and strings, a reverb, a string quartet, other chamber works, sonatas and pieces for the piano. In addition, he edited a number of collections of folk songs, including ''Folk Songs of the Catskills'', ''Dances from the Woodland'', the ''Abelard Folk Song book'', ''Three Catskill Ballads for Orchestra'', ''A Book of Nonsense Songs'', ''American Folk Songs for Children'' and ''A Catskill Songbook''. He also wrote academic articles on topics relating to the philosophy and psychology of music.

Select bibliography

*'Towards a Theory of Realism in Music', ''The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'', Vol. 10, No. 2 (Dec., 1951), pp. 135–151 *'Realism in Abstract Music', ''Music & Letters'', Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 1955), pp. 17–38 *'Can Verbal Meanings Inhere in Fragments of Melody?', ''Psychology of Music'', October 1979, 34-38 *'The Definition of Consonance and Dissonance', ''International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music'', Vol. 11, No. 2 (Dec., 1980), pp. 123–168

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cazden, Norman 1914 births 1980 deaths American male composers 20th-century American composers Musicians from Bangor, Maine University of Michigan faculty Harvard University alumni City College of New York alumni Juilliard School alumni 20th-century American male musicians