Composition at MSU

MSU Frequency, an extension of the Composition Area, is an on-campus media scoring team composed of talented and dedicated students. They provide professional scoring services for various media projects on campus, including promotional videos, advertisements, commercials, and larger projects such as student films and documentaries. MSU Frequency is led by composition faculty members David Biedenbender and Zhou Tian.

Visit this website section to browse media and learn more about the program.

The Composition area has a comprehensive collection of informative resources tailored to support your professional growth in music composition at MSU. Discover insights on licensing, access to prominent professional organizations, stay updated with relevant news sources, and delve into additional resources essential for advancing your career in composition.

Browse the Composer Resources available to help inform your work as a composer.

A few of the many distinguished alumni of the MSU composition program include:

• David R. Gillingham (PhD)  |  Professor of Composition and Theory (retired), Central Michigan University
• Adolphus Hailstork (PhD, 1971)  | Professor of Music, Old Dominion University
• Jere Hutcheson (PhD)  | Professor of Music Composition (retired), Michigan State University
• David Maslanka (MM/PhD, 1971)  |  Composer
• Charles Ruggiero (PhD, 1979)  | Professor of Music Composition (retired), Michigan State University
• Daniel Weymouth  |  Associate Professor of Composition and Theory & Director of cDact, State University of New York at Stony Brook
• Mary Simoni (BM, MM)  |  Professor and Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Ron Herrema (PhD, 2001)  |  Senior Lecturer in Creative Computing, Bath Spa University
• Mihailo Trandafilovski (BM, 2000)  |  Composer, Violinist, and Educator
• Ken Wallicki (PhD)  |  Professor of Music, California State University, Fullerton

Asterisk (*) indicates employment in a tenure-track academic position.

• Henry Dorn (DMA, 2023)  | Composer & Conductor; Assistant Professor & Conductor of the St. Olaf Band*
• Elena Specht (DMA, 2022)  | Composer; Librarian for “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band
• Spencer Arias (DMA, 2022)  |  Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory, Arizona State University
• Emily Mitchell (BM, 2021)   | Composer
• Austin Netherton (MM, 2021)   | Composer
• Sebastian Quesada (DMA, 2021)   | Composer
• Daijana Wallace (MM, 2021)   | Composer
• Trevor Smith (DMA, 2021)   | Composer; Assistant Professor, Tarleton State University*
• Hannah Boissonneault (BM, 2020)   | Composer; Bassist, Spirit Breaker
• Neal Endicott (DMA, 2020)   | Composer; Lecturer, East Tennesse State University
• Keaton Garrett (MM, 2020)   | Composer; Saxophonist
• Justin Pounds (DMA, 2020)   | Composer
• Christopher Kaminski (MM, 2020)   | Composer; Electronic Music and Media Technical Assistant, Michigan State University
• Edward Stumpp (DMA, 2020)   | Instructor of Music, Alma College; Adjunct Faculty, Wayne State University

• Hannah Boissonneault (BM, 2020)  |   MM in Composition, University of Michigan
• Charlie Cooper (BM, 2017) |  Interdisciplinary Graduate program in Sonic Research and Acoustic Ecology, Simon Frasier University
• Doug McCausland (MM, 2017)  | DMA in Composition, Stanford University
• Josh Trentadue (BM, 2017)  | MM in Screen Scoring, New York University
• Christian Kolo (BM, 2017)  | MM in Screen Scoring, University of Southern California
• Bronwen McVeigh (BM, 2017)   | MA/PhD in Musicology, Eastman School of Music
• Chris Newman (BM, 2016)  | MM in Composition, University of Maryland, College Park
• Ashlee T. Busch (MM, 2014)   | DMA in Composition, Arizona State University
• Duncan Petersen-Jones (BM, 2017) – MM in Composition, University of Michigan

2010–2019

• Hannah Boissonneault (BM, 2020)  |   MM in Composition, University of Michigan
• Charlie Cooper (BM, 2017) |  Interdisciplinary Graduate program in Sonic Research and Acoustic Ecology, Simon Frasier University
• Doug McCausland (MM, 2017)  | DMA in Composition, Stanford University
• Josh Trentadue (BM, 2017)  | MM in Screen Scoring, New York University
• Christian Kolo (BM, 2017)  | MM in Screen Scoring, University of Southern California
• Bronwen McVeigh (BM, 2017)   | MA/PhD in Musicology, Eastman School of Music
• Chris Newman (BM, 2016)  | MM in Composition, University of Maryland, College Park
• Ashlee T. Busch (MM, 2014)   | DMA in Composition, Arizona State University
• Duncan Petersen-Jones (BM, 2017) – MM in Composition, University of Michigan

2000–2009

• Ben Fuhrman (MM, 2006; DMA, 2009)   | Special Lecturer, Music Technolgy and Composition, Oakland University & Adjunct Professor of Music, Mott Community College
• Matthew Schoendorf (MM, 2006; DMA, 2009)  | Adjunct Faculty, Music Theory and Composition, Wayne State University
• Roger Petersen (DMA, 2009)  | Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Del Mar College
• Ron Herrema (PhD, 2001)  | Senior Lecturer in Creative Computing, Bath Spa University
• Noel Allende Goitia (PhD, 2000)   | Independent Scholar and Researcher
• Paul Schreiber (DMA)   | Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Mississippi Valley State University
• Won Suk Choi (DMA)   | Executive Producer, Asia Music Network

1990–1999

• Peter Hulen (PhD, 1999)  | Professor of Music Emeritus, Wabash College
• Scott Harding (MM/PhD, 1999)   | Lecturer in Theory and Composition, Central Michigan University
• Mtafiti Imara (PhD, 1997)   | Associate Professor of Composition & Theory, California State University San Marcos
• Gary Nash (PhD, 1996)  | Professor of Music Theory and Technology, Fisk University
• Kelly Tang (PhD, 1995)  | Dean of School of the Arts, Singapore
• Virginia Firnberg (MA, 1994)
• Sarah Miller (PhD, 1997)   | Composition Faculty, MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis, MN

1980-1989

• Ken Wallicki (PhD)  |  Professor of Music, California State University, Fullerton
• Harvey J. Stokes (PhD)  |  Professor of Music, Hampton University

Authored by Charles Ruggiero for New Music Box, published in NewMusic USA

[Ed. Note: When Elliott Carter died in 2012 only a month shy of his 104th birthday the news made international headlines and even landed on the front page of The New York Times. In a great many of the memorials to Carter, writers opined about how he had been the last surviving composer of his generation, a link to a past which we no longer had. But another significant centenarian, H. Owen Reed, survived him, a composer with albeit a somewhat different, but also exemplary, career trajectory.

A Francophile as was Carter, Reed, who was born in Odessa, Missouri in 1910, obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in French in 1937 shortly after receiving Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in Music from Louisiana State University. But rather than going to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, as Carter had done a few years earlier, Reed, who also counted among his most significant compositional mentors an important female pedagogue, Helen M. Gunderson (1909-1997), enrolled at the Eastman School of Music where—under the tutelage of Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers—he obtained a Ph.D. just two years later in 1939. Private studies followed with Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Bohuslav Martinu, among others. He was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1949 which resulted in his spending six months in Mexico studying local folk music. That experience informed what his arguably his most popular composition, La Fiesta Mexicana, a work which has been performed all over the world and has appeared on numerous wind band albums since its premiere recording under the direction of the legendary Frederick Fennell. Because of the success of this composition, Reed has been credited with kindling many composers’ interest in writing for wind ensembles, something he continued to do extensively throughout his long career, although his output also encompassed works for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, and opera. While he might not be categorized as an avant-gardist, many of his scores explored unconventional musical notations and extended techniques. He composed extensively for jazz groups as well and his Latin-tinged “El Muchacho” was recorded by Cal Tjader.

A lifelong learner, into his late 60s, Reed was still embarking on field trips, traveling to Norway and the Caribbean to study the traditional music of those regions. His immersion in Native American culture, which involved extended stays at tribal reservations in Arizona and New Mexico inspired a trilogy of chamber operas based on Native American folktales. And Reed also remained active as a jazz performer, leading combos since his early 20s. Just last year, at the age of 102, he was still improvising at the piano.

Among Reed’s most important legacies was his devotion to younger composers. He spent four decades teaching composition at Michigan State University where he remained Professor Emeritus after his retirement in 1976. His many students included David Maslanka and Adophus Hailstork as well as the late Clare Fischer (1928-2012) who, in addition to his own compositions, arranged music for artists ranging from Dizzy Gillespie and the Hi-Los to Prince and Celine Dion. Reed also authored nine books which remain important reference materials for music students.

After learning of Reed’s death on January 6, it seemed most appropriate to contact someone who had ties to him both as a student and a professional colleague and someone who shared his passions for both contemporary composition and jazz improvisation. So we approached composer/percussionist Charles Ruggiero who had a nearly half century-long friendship with Dr. Reed (as he called him throughout his life), first as his student and subsequently as a fellow composition teacher at MSU. Ruggiero’s detailed account of that remarkable relationship offers those of us who were never fortunate enough to get to know H. Owen Reed, a personal sense of who he was as a composer, teacher, and human being. Another Reed alum and MSU faculty colleague, composer Jere Hutcheson, who actually knew Reed even longer than Ruggiero, has contributed some additional comments herein as well. —FJO]

I first learned of Michigan State University’s music program circa 1966 when I participated in the Villanova Jazz Festival as the drummer for the New England Conservatory’s jazz band. Supplemented by a lead trumpet player ringer from the Berklee College of Music, our band played well at Villanova, but we weren’t able to stay at the festival very long, so we didn’t hear many performances by other bands. On the long bus ride back to Boston, several NEC band members expressed optimism about our chances of winning the award for the best big band. However, the next day our faculty advisor told us that although we had played very well, the Conservatory’s band hadn’t been awarded the first-, second-, or even third-place award. The winning big band at Villanova that year was the MSU Jazz Ensemble. A few years later, when I decided to pursue a Ph.D., I placed Michigan State near the top of my short list, since in addition to having a strong doctoral composition program, MSU also offered excellent jazz performance opportunities and advanced courses in jazz arranging—just the curricular combination I was hoping to find!
Five of the six graduate programs I had applied to communicated with me mostly by mail, but H. Owen Reed personally called me several times while I was making my decision about where I would pursue my graduate degrees. He answered all the questions I had about MSU, the University’s composition program, the Lansing area, and the State of Michigan. Neither my wife, Pat, nor I had ever been to Michigan. We both were New Englanders who had been brought up in Connecticut and had spent much time vacationing in the mountains of New Hampshire. From our study of maps, Pat and I discovered that there were no mountains anywhere near Lansing, Michigan, and we were concerned that mid-Michigan might be a rather dull and foreign-looking place to live.

Dr. Reed (to signal my respect, I always addressed him that way), who had spent some time in Massachusetts, assured us that Michigan was a wonderful place to live. He told us that in the UP (which we eventually figured out meant a place many hours away from Lansing, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) there were some small but beautiful mountains and that in the Lower Peninsula there were lots of hilly areas similar to those found throughout the lower New England states. That sounded good to us. But what Dr. Reed told us about Michigan hills and mountains turned out not to be completely true. There are no mountains in Michigan that are even remotely similar to those found in New Hampshire, and real hills, like those one frequently encounters on bicycle rides in New England, are extremely hard to find! But Dr. Reed’s sales pitch wasn’t all bunk; we discovered after living in the Lansing area for several years, that Michigan, at least large chunks of it, are indeed quite beautiful.

When I told Dr. Reed that another Big Ten university had offered me a good paying half-time assistantship to teach percussion but that I wanted to focus more on composition and music theory and to study with him, it took him only a few days to call me back and offer me two assistantships, one in music theory and one working at WKAR-TV. I was delighted and honored that Dr. Reed had done this; it suggested not only that he really wanted me to come to MSU but also that he was proactive and capable of making things happen quickly even in an institution as large, complex, and often slow-moving as a Big Ten university.

It’s still not clear to me why Dr. Reed so actively recruited me. He always was supportive of me as a composer, in a general way, but at least early on in our relationship I think he was more impressed with my work as a percussionist than as a composer. Included with my application portfolio of compositions were recordings of me playing both one of my works for vibraphone and voice and a transcription for marimba of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor. Scoring for Percussion, an innovative and useful text written by Dr. Reed and Joel T. Leach was published in 1969, and in 1971 Dr. Reed still was strongly interested in all things percussive! Perhaps he was impressed by my recording of the Chopin and the fact that I was the percussion instructor at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, or, more likely, my credentials as a jazz drummer swayed him.

My 1971 MSU application included a very brief letter of recommendation written by John Mehegan. In the year before moving to Michigan, I had studied jazz theory and improvisation with Mehegan and then had become a member of his Connecticut-based jazz trio. (For his New York gigs, Mehegan used Art Blakey and other NYC-based drummers.) Mehegan was also a prominent jazz theorist, pianist, and critic (writing for Down Beat, the New York Herald Tribune, and other publications) who taught jazz improvisation at such prestigious schools as Julliard and Yale University as well as at Tanglewood in Massachusetts. From the 1940s on, Mehegan was at times very closely associated with Leonard Bernstein. H. Owen Reed had worked with Bernstein at Tanglewood in the early 1940s and may have been aware of Mehegan’s relationship with Bernstein. In any case, I was very pleased that Dr. Reed had accepted me into his composition studio, even if it was largely because of my work as a jazz drummer with Mehegan’s trio.

(From Dr. Reed’s earliest musical experiences as a Missouri boy studying piano—just after the peak of the ragtime craze and the emergence of stride piano—to his college days when he played trumpet in dance bands, to his years playing piano as a member of MSU’s Geriatric Six faculty jazz group during the last decade of his teaching career, he was inspired by jazz and thoroughly enjoyed performing it to the best of his abilities. He never claimed to be a great improviser or to possess extraordinary instrumental technique, but he surely did enjoy playing jazz, especially when surrounded by friends.)