Frank Lewin
Encyclopedia
Frank Lewin was an American composer
and teacher.
; with Roy Harris
in Logan, Utah; and with Richard Donovan
and Paul Hindemith
at the Yale School of Music
, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1951.
Lewin composed and edited music for feature, documentary, and television films, including dozens of original scores for The Defenders and The Nurses
. He wrote incidental music for plays from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, and composed scores for historical outdoor dramas by Paul Green
and others, in various parts of the country. He also wrote a number of concert compositions including two operas, several orchestral works, concertos for viola and harmonica, song cycles, and choral music.
Lewin was a professor at the Yale School of Music
from 1971 to 1992, teaching composition for film; and at the Columbia University School of the Arts
from 1975 to 1989, where he taught the course "Music in Modern Media."
Lewin lived in Princeton, New Jersey
from 1951 until his death on January 18, 2008.
Orchestral
Instrumental
Choral
Solo vocal music
Theater music
Historical outdoor dramas
Film and television
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and teacher.
Biography
Frank Lewin was born March 27, 1925, in Breslau, Germany. He and his family escaped from Germany in 1939, spent a year in Cuba, and came to the United States in 1940. Lewin studied composition with Felix Deyo at the Baldwin Conservatory (Long Island, New York); with Jack Frederick Kilpatrick and Hans David at Southern Methodist UniversitySouthern Methodist University
Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...
; with Roy Harris
Roy Harris
Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an American composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No...
in Logan, Utah; and with Richard Donovan
Richard Donovan
Richard Donovan is an Irish runner and marathoner who won the inaugural South Pole Marathon in January 2002. In April 2002 he completed the first marathon-length run in the North Pole....
and Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
at the Yale School of Music
Yale School of Music
The Yale School of Music is one of the twelve professional schools at Yale University and one of the premier music conservatories in the world....
, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1951.
Lewin composed and edited music for feature, documentary, and television films, including dozens of original scores for The Defenders and The Nurses
The Nurses
The Nurses is a soap opera that aired on ABC from September 27, 1965 to March 31, 1967. The show was a continuation of a serialized primetime drama which aired on CBS originally called The Nurses when it premiered in 1962, later called The Doctors and the Nurses.The setting was Alden General...
. He wrote incidental music for plays from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, and composed scores for historical outdoor dramas by Paul Green
Paul Green
Paul Eliot Green was an American playwright best known for his depictions of life in North Carolina during the first decades of the twentieth century...
and others, in various parts of the country. He also wrote a number of concert compositions including two operas, several orchestral works, concertos for viola and harmonica, song cycles, and choral music.
Lewin was a professor at the Yale School of Music
Yale School of Music
The Yale School of Music is one of the twelve professional schools at Yale University and one of the premier music conservatories in the world....
from 1971 to 1992, teaching composition for film; and at the Columbia University School of the Arts
Columbia University School of the Arts
The Columbia University School of the Arts , also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the division of the university that offers Master of Fine Arts degrees in Film, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, and Writing, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies...
from 1975 to 1989, where he taught the course "Music in Modern Media."
Lewin lived in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
from 1951 until his death on January 18, 2008.
Works
Operas- Gulliver, an opera in two acts, with some sections composed by Easley Blackwood and Elliot Kaplan (1975)
- Burning Bright, based on the novel and play by John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
(1993)
Orchestral
- Evocation (1960)
- Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra, (1960)
- Concerto Armonico, viola and orchestra (1960); revision and transcription of the Harmonica Concerto by violist Brett Deubner (2006)
- Concerto on Silesian Tunes, viola concerto (1965)
Instrumental
- Dunlap's Creek, for organ and English horn (1953)
- Music for the New Family of Violins, for the eight instruments designed and built by Carleen HutchinsCarleen HutchinsCarleen Maley Hutchins was an American former high school science teacher, violinmaker and researcher, best-known for her creation, in the 1950s/60s, of a family of eight proportionally-sized violins now known as the violin octet and for a considerable body of research into the acoustics of violins...
(1965)
Choral
- Psalm 121 (1942)
- Psalm 148 (1949)
- Psalm 137 (1956)
- Behold, How Good (1959)
- Seasons (1962)
- Music for the White House (1965)
- Requiem for Robert F. Kennedy (Mass for the Dead, in English) (1969)
Solo vocal music
- Shall I Compare Thee (1949)
- A Dutch Lullaby (1952)
- Innocence and Experience (1961)
- Variations of Greek Themes (1977)
- A Musical Nashery (1980)
- Wedding Music (1981)
- Phoenix (1993)
- She Walks in Beauty (1994)
Theater music
- The Trojan War Will Not Take Place by Jean Girudoux (1952)
- Theater of the Soul by Nicolai Evreinov (1953)
- Summer and Smoke by Tennessee WilliamsTennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
(1954) - The Tempest by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1955) - Knight of the Burning Pestle by Beaumont and FletcherBeaumont and FletcherBeaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I ....
(1955) - Twelfth Night by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1956) - Taming of the Shrew by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1957) - Blood Wedding by Federico García LorcaFederico García LorcaFederico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
(1957) - A Midsummer Night's Dream by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1958) - Thieves' Carnival by Jean AnouilhJean AnouilhJean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
(1958) - Leonce and Lena by Georg BüchnerGeorg BüchnerKarl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
(1958) - The Tempest by William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1967) - Caesar at the Rubicon by Theodore WhiteTheodore H. WhiteTheodore Harold White was an American political journalist, historian, and novelist, known for his wartime reporting from China and accounts of the 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1980 presidential elections.-Life and career:...
(1971) - Streets of Gold by Tom DeTitta (1992)
Historical outdoor dramas
- Beyond the Sundown by Kermit HunterKermit HunterKermit Houston Hunter American playwright known primarily for writing outdoor historical dramas.Born in McDowell County, West Virginia in 1910, Hunter went on to Ohio State University where he graduated in 1931. After graduation, he held a number of jobs and joined the U.S. Army in 1940...
(1975) - The McIntosh Trail by Kermit HunterKermit HunterKermit Houston Hunter American playwright known primarily for writing outdoor historical dramas.Born in McDowell County, West Virginia in 1910, Hunter went on to Ohio State University where he graduated in 1931. After graduation, he held a number of jobs and joined the U.S. Army in 1940...
(1976) - Dust on her Petticoats by Kermit HunterKermit HunterKermit Houston Hunter American playwright known primarily for writing outdoor historical dramas.Born in McDowell County, West Virginia in 1910, Hunter went on to Ohio State University where he graduated in 1931. After graduation, he held a number of jobs and joined the U.S. Army in 1940...
(1976) - Hernando DeSoto, Conquistador by Kermit HunterKermit HunterKermit Houston Hunter American playwright known primarily for writing outdoor historical dramas.Born in McDowell County, West Virginia in 1910, Hunter went on to Ohio State University where he graduated in 1931. After graduation, he held a number of jobs and joined the U.S. Army in 1940...
(1976) - Blue Jacket by W.L. Mundell (1982)
- Trumpet in the Land by Paul GreenPaul GreenPaul Eliot Green was an American playwright best known for his depictions of life in North Carolina during the first decades of the twentieth century...
(1984) - The White Savage by Joseph Bonamico and Mark Durbin (1997)
Film and television
- The Nurses, television series (1961-63)
- The Defenders, television series (1962-65)
- A Year Toward Tomorrow, documentary film (1967)
- The Plot Against Harry, theatrical film (1989)
Writings
- The Soundtrack in Nontheatrical Motion Pictures. Society of Motion Picture Engineers, 1958.
- Man and His Sound--Expo 67. Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, 1968.
- Burning Bright, The Genesis of an Opera, Lyrica Society, 1985.
- The Music of Language in a Passage from Tannhäuser, Ars Lyrica, Journal of the Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations, Volume XIII, 2003.
- Reflecting on Wagner http://www.franklewin.net/wagner.html
Awards
- Fellowships from the National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the ArtsThe National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
and New Jersey State Council on the ArtsNew Jersey State Council on the ArtsThe New Jersey State Council on the Arts was founded in 1966 to support artistic activities in the state of New Jersey. It is funded by the New Jersey State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts .... - Distinguished Artist Award from New Jersey State Council on the ArtsNew Jersey State Council on the ArtsThe New Jersey State Council on the Arts was founded in 1966 to support artistic activities in the state of New Jersey. It is funded by the New Jersey State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts ....