Herbert Owen Reed was an American composer, conductor, author, and music educator whose nearly four-decade career at Michigan State University combined teaching, composition, research, and performance. He is best known for La Fiesta Mexicana, a widely performed concert-band work shaped by his study of Mexican folk music.
Background
Herbert Owen Reed was born on June 17, 1910, in Odessa, Missouri, and grew up in a musically active family. His father played the fiddle and his mother played the piano, experiences that helped shape his lifelong interest in American traditional music. Reed began studying at the University of Missouri in 1929 and supported himself during his student years in part by playing in jazz bands. His later compositional interests extended beyond Mexico to American fiddle traditions, Native American music in New Mexico and Arizona, Caribbean music, and Nordic music.
Education
Reed began university study at the University of Missouri in 1929 and transferred to Louisiana State University in 1933. At Louisiana State he earned a Bachelor of Music in music composition in 1934, a Master of Music in 1936, and a Bachelor of Arts in French in 1937. He then studied at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, where he completed a Ph.D. in composition in 1939. His teachers and later mentors included Howard Hanson, Bernard Rogers, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Bohuslav Martinů, Roy Harris, and other prominent American composers and musicians. In 1942 he studied at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, where he worked with Martinů, Copland, Bernstein, and Stanley Chapple.
Career
Reed joined the composition faculty of Michigan State College in 1939 and remained associated with Michigan State University for nearly four decades. He taught music theory, advanced harmony, and composition, later serving as chairman of theory and composition and as acting head of the School of Music from 1957 to 1958. He retired from the university in 1976 and was granted emeritus status. Alongside his academic career, he composed for concert band, orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, stage, and opera; conducted performances; wrote textbooks on music theory and composition; and continued composing, teaching, performing, and guest conducting after retirement. A Guggenheim Fellowship supported six months of study in Mexico in 1948–1949, and he later undertook additional folk-music research in Mexico, the Caribbean, Norway, New Mexico, and Arizona. His best-known composition, La Fiesta Mexicana, grew from his Mexican research and became a major work in the concert-band repertory. He also remained active as a jazz pianist and performer into advanced age.
Achievements
Composed La Fiesta Mexicana, a three-movement concert-band work based on Mexican folk music that became Reed’s best-known and most widely performed composition.
Produced an extensive body of compositions for band, orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, stage, and opera, including a trilogy of chamber operas based on Native American legends: Earth Trapped, Living Solid Face, and Butterfly Girl and Mirage Boy.
Published eight books and instructional works on music theory, counterpoint, composition, orchestration, and related subjects.
Taught and mentored composers and musicians at Michigan State University for nearly four decades while maintaining an active career as a composer and performer.
Works
chamber opera
Living Solid Face
(Chamber dance-opera with a libretto by Forrest Coggan.)
1974
Butterfly Girl and Mirage Boy
(Chamber opera drawing on Hopi-Aztec legends.)
1980
Earth Trapped
(Chamber opera based on Sioux legend.)
1960
Composition textbook
Materials of Music Composition, Book II: Exploring the Parameters
(Second volume of Reed’s composition series, written with ...)
1980
Materials of Music Composition, Book I: Fundamentals
(First volume of Reed’s composition series, written with R...)
(College-level music theory text by H. Owen Reed.)
1954
music theory workbook
Basic Music Workbook
(Companion workbook to Basic Music.)
1954
Workbook in the Fundamentals of Music
(Instructional work by H. Owen Reed on fundamental music t...)
1947
orchestration textbook
Scoring for Percussion and the Instruments
(Instructional work on percussion scoring and instrumentat...)
1969
recording
The Composer’s Voice: H. Owen Reed
(Recording and interview presentation documenting Reed’s m...)
2004
Views
Reed described composition as requiring strength in harmony, melody, rhythm, form, and color, and emphasized the importance of creative development rather than mechanical adherence to rules.
Membership
Reed participated in several professional and musical organizations, including the National Association of Composers, the American Music Center, the American Society of Composers, the Music Teachers National Association, the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. Within the Music Teachers National Association, he chaired the theory and composition section. His Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia affiliation included the Orpheus Award associated with the Gamma Epsilon chapter in 1976.
National Association of Composers, national council
,
United States
American Music Center
,
United States
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
,
United States
Chairman of the theory and composition section.
Music Teachers National Association
,
United States
Honorary member.
Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association
,
United States
Associated with the Orpheus Award of the Gamma Epsilon chapter.
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
,
United States
1976
Personality
Reed was remembered by colleagues and former students for his warmth, personal charm, generosity as a teacher, and unusually direct ability to communicate musical ideas. He remained actively engaged with music, piano, jazz performance, fishing, and travel throughout his long life.
Quotes from others about the person
Former students and colleagues described Reed as a gifted composer, teacher, mentor, and jazz musician whose personal encouragement had a lasting effect on the musicians he taught.
Interests
Fishing, world travel, piano performance, trumpet, and jazz.
Music & Bands
Jazz performance and American traditional music, including Mexican folk music, American fiddle tunes, Native American music, Caribbean music, and Nordic folk music.
Connections
Reed maintained long professional connections with Michigan State University and with generations of composers and musicians whom he taught and mentored. He was married first to Esther and later to Mary, who survived him. He had two daughters and three stepchildren, as well as fifteen grandchildren and twenty-two great-grandchildren. After retirement he helped establish and perform with a Michigan State faculty jazz ensemble known as the Geriatric Six.
H. Owen Reed Papers, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Archival description documenting Reed’s career as composer, author, conductor, and music educator, his compositions and books, and his research in Mexican and Native American music.
2018
H. Owen Reed, Bandworks Publications
Biographical profile describing Reed’s education, teaching career, La Fiesta Mexicana, and influence as a teacher and mentor.
