Albion College student Kevin Ryan spent part of the summer at the Eastman School of Music, doing biographical and musicological research on American composer Howard Hanson, who was Eastman's director for 40 years.  Photos courtesy of Kevin Ryan

Finding Yesterday’s Music for Tomorrow
Kevin Ryan, ’07, Rediscovers American Composer Howard Hanson
July 20, 2006

Like many college students, I’ve spent a lot of time this summer listening to music. Unlike most of them, however, I’ve been getting paid to listen! With the support of an Albion College summer research grant from Albion's Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity, I have been studying the life and music of American classical composer Howard Hanson (1896-1981).

As part of my research I was able to travel to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, whose library houses the Hanson archives. A composer, musician and educator, Hanson was a powerful voice and influence in bettering the American music education system.

During his 40 years as director of the Eastman School of Music, Hanson established Eastman as one of the country’s premier schools. Along with educating some of the world’s finest performers and composers, Hanson was instrumental in establishing the Doctorate of Musical Arts as a valid and important academic component for performers. Added to all this, Hanson wrote dozens of exquisite piano and orchestral works, and a popular opera, all of which are mysteriously forgotten today.  I hope my research can help change that.

The first American to win the Prix de Rome in 1921, Hanson was also the 1944 Pulitzer Prize winner in music.  He composed one opera, Merry Mount, which garnered 50 stage calls at its opening performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Nonetheless, Hanson's music is largely overlooked by American orchestras today.

The Eastman School of Music is a massive, ornate, early 20th-century building that is now right in the center of modern, downtown Rochester. It’s as if Eastman has remained timeless while the city continued to evolve around it. I think Hanson would have liked that.

During my stay in Rochester, I toured the entire music building and walked in the very same hallways and classrooms as Hanson did. In the archives, I had access to around 100 boxes of Hanson’s essays, papers, speeches, scores, articles, concert programs and radio addresses. Hanson would hand write his speeches and addresses before typing them. These were some of the most eloquent and well written speeches I have ever read.

The Eastman School of Music in downtown Rochester, NY.

For instance, here is a quote Hanson made in support of music programs in the public school systems: “High school chorus, orchestra or band may be an unmitigated nuisance in terms of schedule and budget, but it is also…one of the greatest instruments in your curriculum, for it not only sensitizes the mind to an appreciation of beauty, but it is a living, breathing course in sociology, an unparalleled exercise in the highest form of teamwork and an emotional therapy of the greatest potency.”

During the 2006-07 school year I will give a lecture/recital as well as write a senior thesis about Howard Hanson. I'm one of only a handful of people who have done serious research on Hanson, so the majority of my research will be original and unique to my project. I hope these projects will become a valuable resource for musicologists when putting together a future comprehensive compendium or biography on Howard Hanson. I also hope that this thesis will inspire other young musicians to explore the life, music, and legacy of Hanson in their own studies.