Leslie Bassett

Leslie Bassett

Biography

Leslie Bassett (23 January 1923, Hanford, CA - 4 February 2016, Oakwood, Ga.) was an American composer and educator.

Bassett studied piano, trombone, cello and other instruments, then served as trombonist, composer and arranger with the 13th Armored Division Band in the US and Europe during World War II. Graduate study at Michigan with Ross Lee Finney was followed by work in Paris as a Fulbright fellow with Arthur Honegger at the Ecole Normale de Musique and with Nadia Boulanger at her home. He later studied with Mario Davidovsky in electronic music and with the Spanish-British composer Roberto Gerhard. The family lived in Rome, 1961-63, during the Rome Prize at the American Academy.

Mr. Bassett received the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Variations for Orchestra, premiered in Rome in 1963 by the RAI Symphony Orchestra under Feruccio Scaglia, followed two years later by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s US premiere under Eugene Ormandy. Variations, which represented the U.S. at the 1966 International Rostrum for Composers in Paris, has been widely performed. A recording by the Zurich Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Sternberg for Composers Recordings (CRI 677), was hailed by Saturday Review as one of music’s finest classical releases.

Leslie Bassett was the University of Michigan’s Albert A. Stanley Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Music and was the 1984 Henry Russel Lecturer, the University's highest faculty honor. He has received the Distinguished Artist Award from the State of Michigan, was named Distinguished Alumnus by his California alma mater, Fresno State, and by the University of Michigan School of Music. He was awarded the major composer award and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has twice been composer-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center. Boston held its “Leslie Bassett Week" in March, 1990.

Works for Winds

• Colors and Contours (1984)
• Concerto Grosso for Brass Quintet with Wind and Percussion Ensemble (1982)
• Designs, Images, and Textures (1964)
• Fantasy for Clarinet and Wind Ensemble (1986)
• Lullaby for Kirsten (1985)
• Nonet (c. 1967)
• Sounds, Shapes, and Symbols (1977)
• Wood and Reed Transformed (1998)

Resources

• Leslie Bassett website
• Chapman, Christopher C. “Leslie Bassett.” In A Composer’s Insight, Volume 2, Timothy Salzman, editor. Galesville, Md.: Meredith Music Publications, 2004. pp. 1–15.
• Davis, Daniel R. (1984). "A performance analysis of three works for wind band by Leslie Bassett.” D.M.A. dissertation. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati. Abstract: Dissertation Abstracts International 56(1) (July 1995): 21-A; University Microfilms International no. 95-11316.
• Johnson, Ellen S. (1994). Leslie Bassett: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
• Leslie Bassett website
• Leslie Bassett, Prized Composers, University of Washington
• Miles, Richard B. 2000. Teaching Music Through Performance in Band. Volume 3. Chicago: GIA Publications. pp. 310.
• Rachleff, Larry. (1985, Winter). "An interview with Leslie Bassett." CBDNA Journal 2(1), 1-4.