Robert Ward (b. September 13, 1917) is an American composer.

He was innate inside Cleveland, Ohio, one of five tikes of the creator of the moving & storage company. As a son he sang inside church choirs & local opera theaters. His earliest extant compositions date to 1934, at a time he was attending John Adams High School, from either which he graduated around 1935. Fallowing that, Ward attended a Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, in which his composition teachers were Bernard Rogers, Howard Hanson, and Edward Royce. Ward received a fellowship & attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York from either 1939 to 1942, where he exposed composition by using Frederick Jacobi, orchestration by using Bernard Wagenaar, & conducting by having Albert Stoessel & Edgar Schenkman. In the summertime of 1941 he exposed under Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center inside Massachusetts.

From either his student times to the prevent of World War II, Ward produced about 40 compositions, of which eleven he late withdrew. Virtually all of victims early works come on the little shell, mostly songs, a bit of pieces for even piano or chamber ensembles. He completed his Number 1 Symphony within 1941, which won a Juilliard Publication Award the ensuing season. As much as that period, Ward besides wrote the total of reviews & more articles for the magazine Modern Music & served on the faculty of Queens College.

Within February 1942 Ward joined the U.S. Army, and attended the Army Music School at Fort Myer, being assigned the military occupational specialty of band director. At Fort Riley, Kansas, he wrote A major the portion of the score to a musical review known as The Life of Riley. Ward was assigned to the Seventh Foot & sent to the Pacific. For the Seventh Foot B& he wrote the March, and for its band he wrote at least ii jazz compositions.

When you took his military machine service Ward met Mary Raymond Benedict, the Red Cross recreation worker. It married in June 19, 1944, and experienced 5 babies. Ward earned the Bronze Star for meritorious service in the Aleutian Islands. When you took his military machine service Ward managed to compose ii good orchestral compositions, Adagio & Allegro, foremost performed inside Up to date York around 1944, & Jubilatiin: An Overture, which was written mostly on Okinawa, Japan, in 1945, & was premiered at Carnegie Hall by the National Orchestral Association the as a result spring.

When existence freed from either armed forces service at a prevent of the war, Ward returned to Juilliard, earning graduate certificate within 1946 and immediately joining the faculty, teachiing there until 1956. He served as an Associate inside Music at Columbia University from 1946 to 1948.

Ward wrote his 2nd Symphony, dedicated to his married woman, inside 1947, while sleep in Nyack, New York. It was premiered per National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Kindler. This Symphony was quite popular for two or three years, around a share thanks to Eugene Ormandy playing it with a Philadelphia Orchestra several times & potentially ingesting it on the road to Carnegie Hall around Future York & Constitution Hall inside Wash., D.C.

Andrew Stiller, within his article in Ward for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, describes Ward's musical style when deriving "largely from Hindemith, but also shows the considerable influence of Gershwin". Ward conducted a Doctors Orchestral Society of Just released York from either 1949 to 1955, wrote his Third Symphony & his Number 1 Sonata for Fiddle & Piano withwithin 1950, a sacred Songs for Pantheists in 1951, and was director of the Third Street Music School Personal injury settlement from either 1952 to 1955, and wrote a Music for Orchestra inside 1954. He left Juilliard within 1956 to become Executive Vice-President of Galaxy Music Corporation and Managing Editor of High Gate Press inside Up to date York, positions he maintained until 1967. Ward wrote his For Symphony inside 1958, the Prairie Overture within 1957, a oratorio GloExist as Shall Be Fair & the Serenade around 1960. Ward wrote his 1st operthe to a libretto by Bernard Stambler, He Who Gets Slapped, & it was premiered around 1956. His next opera, The Crucible, based on Arthur Miller's play, premiered in 1961, became Ward's better known act. For it Ward received a Pulitzer Prize for music. These are often produced around the world.

Fallowing a profits of The Melting pot, Ward received many commissions for ceremonial works, like Anthem & Celebration within 1962, Music for a Celebration inside 1963, Festive Ode in 1966, Fiesta Processional in 1966, and Music for a Great Occasion inside 1970. When you took victims years he likewise wrote a cantata, ''Sweet Freedom's Song, in 1965; the Fifth Symphony within 1976; a Piano Concerto within 1968, which was commissioned per Powder Flow of any stream Foundation for the soloist Marjorie Mitchell; the Saxophone Concerto around 1984; and quaternity additional operas: A Lady from either Colorado around 1964, Claudia Leqare in 1977, Abelard and Heloise within 1981, and Minutes till Midnight in 1982. He too wrote chamber music, like a 1st String Quartet of 1966 & a Raleigh Divertimento'' of 1985.

Within 1967, Ward became Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. He held this post till 1975, when he stepped down to serve as a member of the composition faculty for 5 sir thomas more years. Around 1978 he came to Duke University when a visiting professor, & there he remained as Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music from 1979 to 1987.

In the fall of 1987, he retired from either Duke University when Professor Emeritus, & continues to survive and compose around Durham, North Carolina. His virtually all recent composition is the Savannah symphony which was premiered in the spring of 2004 per University of South Carolina Orchestra.