Up Till Now

I started writing songs and playing boogie-woogie during High School in Tampa. After flying B-17s for the 8th Air Force, I enrolled at the University of Alabama as a Music Major. I studied Piano with Roy McAllister, Theory with Guerney Kennedy, Orchestration with Byron Arnold, and Composition with Paul Newell. The University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ottokar Cadek, performed my Sonata for Orchestra in my Senior year. I submitted the score and a wire recording at one of the early meetings of the Alabama Composers League and was awarded their First Prize for Composition.

I then went to Florida State University and began a study of Physics, with the hope of creating an electronic orchestra that could be used by composers who usually have little chance of having a performance of their scores. While there, I almost sabotaged my Physics career by agreeing to write the music for a musical comedy which was performed by FSU's Sandspur Productions. Vernon Raines, who later became the Conductor of the Meridian Symphony, conducted the orchestra for the performances.

Upon graduation, I accepted a position at the nearby Navy Laboratory in Panama City, FL.  During my career there I found time to write four musicals …. two were comedies performed by the MDL Players. Two were dramas. One, based on Christopher Fry's The Boy With a Cart, was performed by the St. Andrews Episcopal Players and Choir. The second was music for the Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie.

When I retired from the Lab I started building an Electronic Orchestra based on circuitry published by Bob Moog in Audio Engineering. However, with the advent of MIDI controlled synthesizers, I got back to writing music …. with the joy of hearing it performed.

Alabama Composers League

The Alabama Composers’ League was founded by Paul Newell and Guerney Kennedy. The first meeting of the  League was held at the University of Alabama on January 23-24, 1948. A report on the Symposium and a critique of the compositions was prepared by Dr. William Presser.

The League expanded into the Regional Composers’ Forum to provide southeastern composers a venue for the performance of their works. The last Forum was held at the University of Alabama in 1970. Since that time, the Southeastern Composers League has continued to meet the needs of composers in the area.