Webster A. Young

Last updated

Webster A. Young is a composer of symphonies, ballets and operas. His most recent recorded CD is "The Best Violin Melodies of W. A. Young" at Spotify and other music streaming sites. [1] He was the most prolific composer for ballet in the US in the 1980s, before Martins-Torke, working with Eric Hyrst, formerly of the Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, New York City Ballet, and the Royal Ballet of England. [2] Young appears with Eric Hyrst in the film "Two for Ballet", available from Cinema Guild, NY. [3] More recently he has appeared in "Return to Aspen" and "6000 Miles to Ukraine" on Rocky Mountain PBS, (2022) [4] In 1992, "Two for Ballet" was seen on 63 PBS stations nationwide. [5] The Jerome Robbins Dance Collection at Lincoln Center, NY, has an extensive file on Eric Hyrst's career that also includes videos of the first three Hyrst-Young ballets. [6] Young became the artistic director of the Long Island Opera Company 1998–2003. [7] Young was the first composer in many decades to set Shakespeare's "As You Like It" to music as an opera in four acts. Soprano, tenor, and baritone operas from it are published at MusicNotes.com, and several performances are in videos at YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Youku, and Toudou.com [8] Now on his Opus 208. Among his most recent works are several pieces for unaccompanied cello. [9] Other recent works include 20 tangos [10] and 10 salsa pieces for orchestra, some also arranged for piano. Opera arias and piano music published at MusicNotes.com [11] Young studied composition with Richard Swift, Andrew Frank, Giampaolo Bracali, and notably with Charles Jones - who was acquainted with Stravinsky and a close friend of Darius Milhaud. [12] Young is related through his grandmother, Seena Harbach Purdy, to Otto Harbach, the Broadway lyricist and playwright, who was his great uncle. Otto Harbach's oldest brother, Adolphe, Webster Young's great grandfather, was a band conductor. Young's paternal grandfather, Owen Young, was a semi professional watercolor landscape painter, of whose works a few hundred paintings are extant. [13] Webster Young is the author of four books: The Palaces of Music (2017), Music, Painting and Jung (2012), and The Little Flowers of the Desert Brothers (2017) "Music in the Church" (2021)

Contents

Works

Operas

Symphonies

Ballets

All were created with Eric Hyrst, choreographer d. 1996. [14]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Libretto</span> Text used in an extended musical work such as an opera or musical

A libretto is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term libretto is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Nyman</span> English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer, pianist, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film scores, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. He has written a number of operas, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Letters, Riddles and Writs; Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs; Facing Goya; Man and Boy: Dada; Love Counts; and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond. He has written six concerti, five string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band. He is also a performing pianist. Nyman prefers to write opera over other forms of music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Honegger</span> Swiss composer (1892–1955)

Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, his best known work is probably Antigone, composed between 1924 and 1927 to the French libretto by Jean Cocteau based on the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. It premiered on 28 December 1927 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie with sets designed by Pablo Picasso and costumes by Coco Chanel. However, his most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which was inspired by the sound of a steam locomotive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eduard Tubin</span> Estonian composer and conducto

Eduard Tubin was an Estonian composer, conductor, and choreographer.

The Mariinsky Ballet is the resident classical ballet company of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

<i>King Roger</i> Opera by Karol Szymanowski

King Roger is an opera in three acts by Karol Szymanowski to a Polish libretto by the composer himself and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, the composer's cousin. The score was finished in 1924. The opera received its world premiere on 19 June 1926 at the Grand Theatre, Warsaw, with the cast including the composer's sister, the soprano Stanisława Korwin-Szymanowska, as Roxana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdinand Hérold</span> French composer (1791–1833)

Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold, better known as Ferdinand Hérold, was a French composer. He was celebrated in his lifetime for his operas, of which he composed more than twenty, but he also wrote ballet music, works for piano and choral pieces. He is best known today for the ballet La Fille mal gardée and the overture to the opera Zampa.

<i>Romeo and Juliet</i> (Prokofiev) 1935 ballet by Sergei Prokofiev

Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64, is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev based on William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. First composed in 1935, it was substantially revised for its Soviet premiere in early 1940. Prokofiev made from the ballet three orchestral suites and a suite for solo piano.

Daniel Dorff is an American classical composer.

Nicolas Oreste Flagello was an American composer and conductor of classical music. He was one of the last American composers to develop a distinctive mode of expression based wholly on the principles and techniques of European late romanticism.

<i>Mlada</i> (Rimsky-Korsakov) Opera-ballet by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Mlada is an opera-ballet in four acts, composed between 1889 and 1890 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to a libretto by Viktor Krylov that was originally employed for an aborted project of the same name from 1872.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkish State Opera and Ballet</span>

The State Opera and Ballet is the national directorate of opera and ballet companies of Turkey, with venues in Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Antalya and Samsun. The directorate is bound to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. As of January 2018, Murat Karahan is the General Director.

George Daugherty is an American conductor, director, producer, and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Xavier Rodriguez</span> American classical composer (born 1946)

Robert Xavier Rodríguez is an American classical composer, best known for his eight operas and his works for children.

David Sawer, is a British composer of opera and choral, orchestral and chamber music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Ilyinsky</span> Russian music teacher and composer

Alexander Alexandrovich Ilyinsky was a Russian music teacher and composer, best known for the Lullaby (Berceuse), Op. 13, No. 7, from his orchestral suite "Noure and Anitra", and for the opera The Fountain of Bakhchisaray set to Pushkin's poem of the same name.

<i>Schlagobers</i>

Schlagobers, Op. 70, is a ballet in two acts with a libretto and score by Richard Strauss. Composed in 1921–22, it was given its première at the Vienna State Opera on 9 May 1924.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Misha Geller</span> Russian composer

Michael Lazarevich "Misha" Geller was a Russian viola player and composer.

Scherzo fantastique, op. 3, composed in 1908, is the second purely orchestral work by Igor Stravinsky. Despite the composer's later description of the work as "a piece of 'pure', symphonic music", the work was inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck's 1901 essay "La Vie des Abeilles", as is made clear in a letter of 18 June 1907 from the composer to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov. Ten years later, Léo Staats adapted it as a ballet for the Opéra Garnier, with the title Les Abeilles, which was objected to by Maeterlinck.

The Sun Also Rises is a one-act opera by Webster A. Young, based on Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. It is one of a pair of Hemingway works that Young adapted into operas. The opera's libretto is by the composer, and includes direct quotations from the novel. It premiered on May 7, 2000 at the Long Island Opera.

References

  1. https://artists.spotify.com/c/artist/4AoycOhH3HGsVoVk0j8ydf/profile/overview
  2. The 1990 International Who's Who in Music
  3. Cinema Guild, New York
  4. https://video.rmpbs.org/search/?q=Webster+Young
  5. IMDB, information on Webster Young
  6. NY Public Library, Lincoln Center, NY 10023
  7. Webster Young: Brief Biography
  8. See Youtube.com under Webster Young
  9. "Prades Prelude at Amazon books: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092PKQ9W3
  10. "Romance de Tango" at Amazon books: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089M2GZGN
  11. Musicnotes.com
  12. "The Palaces of Music, Editions d'Auteurs, Amazon.com/ Webster Young
  13. "The Naked Composer", Editions d'Auteurs, Amazon.com/books/Webster Young
  14. Palaces of Music, Editions D'Auteurs, Amazon.com/books
  15. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09M4NZMY3