Robert S. Bloch
(1934–2023)
Robert Samson Bloch earned a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a le prix avec distinction from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Brussels. He was a violinist and violist known equally for his performance of early and contemporary music and was the recipient of the First Prize in the Young Artists Contest of the Society of American Musicians, the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, and an Alfred Hertz Memorial Fellowship.
A former violinist in the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera, he was also the principal second violin of the Minnesota Orchestra. He made solo appearances throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States. Some years ago he was invited to join the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on a tour that took them to Germany, England, and the former Soviet Union. He recorded for Pathe-Marconi, Musical Heritage, Monitor, and Redwood Records.
Sydney R. Charles
(1922–2014)
Sydney R. Charles, professor emerita, joined the faculty of the Department of Music in 1961 and retired in 1985. Her major fields of research include musical practice and theory, 14th- and 15th-century English music, and musical iconography. Charles was active in building the music collection at Shields Library, and she served as chair of the department from 1977 to 1980.
She published the books Josquin des Prez: A Guide to Research, The Music of the Pepys MS 1236, and A Handbook of Music and Music Literature in Sets and Series, and she published many articles in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She also was an editor of the journal Notes. Charles received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Eastman School of Music and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1959.
Andrew Frank
(1946–2022), Retired 2007
Andrew Frank (b. Los Angeles, 1946) studied composition with Jacob Druckman at Bard College (B.A. 1968) and with George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick at the University of Pennsylvania (M.A. 1970). He had been a member of the Department of Music at UC Davis since 1972, and in 2007 became professor emeritus.
Frank received numerous awards, prizes, grants, and commissions for his music, including two BMI Awards (1969, 1970), two NEA Composer Fellowships (1976, 1978), Composers Conference Fellowship (1977), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1987). Other honors include first prizes from the American Harp Society, the International Trumpet Guild, Marimolin (Elective Affinities III for Violin and Marimba, 1989), and the Fine Arts Festival Music Award from Illinois State University (Piano Quartet No. 1, 1989). He also received the New York Composers Forum Award (1975), the Percussive Arts Society Award (1976), and the American Composers Alliance Recording Award (1980).
His music may be heard on three CRI recordings and on the following labels: Gunmar (Marimolin), Sierra Classical (The Debussy Trio), Azica (Lara Downes), and three Centaur CDs. Many of his works are published by Mobart Music, Inc, Margun Music, Inc., G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers, Shawnee Press, and E.T. Watkins Press.
His works have been performed nationally and internationally by, among others, the Kronos Quartet (String Quartet No. 2), the Da Capo Chamber Players, Stony Brook Contemporary Music Players, New Music Consort, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Penn Contemporary Players, Sonor at UC San Diego, Empyrean Ensemble, Indianapolis Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Earplay, Composers Inc., Row Twelve Ensemble, Rice University Percussion Quartet, Westwind Brass Quintet, Albatros Ensemble (Italy), Lawrence University Percussion Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble, and the Debussy Trio. Solo and other chamber works have been performed by Robert Miller, Bonnie Hampton and Nathan Schwartz, Marcella DeCray, Lois Svard, David Burge, Bertram Turetzky, Sharan Leventhal, Nancy Zeltsman, Michael Lorimer, Makoto Nakura, Christine Schadeberg, Tod Brody, Peter Josheff, Karen Rosenak, Stephen Gosling, Chris Froh, Eric Huebner, Paul Lustig Dunkel, Linda Quan, Lara Downes, Christopher Oldfather, Lois Martin, and many other notable musicians.
Recent works include Matinee d’ivresse for six players, Rhapsody for Cello and Piano, Duo Concertante for Clarinet and Piano, a sextet, String Quartet No. 6, a trio for flute, violin, and piano, Au bout de la nuit for flute, vibraphone, and marimba, Autumn Rhythm V for two marimbas, Autumn Rhythm VI for piano, and A Mind of Winter for violin and guitar.
From 1988 to 1994 he was a member of the board of directors of the San Francisco-based contemporary music organization Earplay (and president from 1991 to 1994).
Albert J. McNeil
(1920–2022)
Albert John Joseph McNeil is a native Californian, born in Los Angeles. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles, and did doctoral studies at the University of Southern California, the Westminster Choir College of Princeton, and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He was director of choral activities for 21 years and headed the music education program at UC Davis.
McNeil also taught courses in ethnomusicology at the University of Southern California for 12 years. McNeil began his teaching career as a teacher of music in the elementary, junior and senior high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. His mentors have included distinguished names in choral music: Raymond Moreman, Charles Hirt, J. Finley Williamson, Roger Wagner, Howard Swan, and Jester Hairston.
The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers ensemble is his creation, and he has dedicated himself to upholding a choral tradition of excellence with the presentation of the classical spiritual around the world. Under his direction, the group has performed in 70 countries in addition to several transcontinental tours of the United States, Canada, and Hawaii.
In addition to his work at the university and conducting the Jubilee Singers, McNeil was author and editor of a series of music education textbooks for Silver Burdett-Ginn Publishing Company. He co-authored an educational packet for Bowman Publishing Company as well. He was director of the Sacramento Chorale for ten years and co-founded the Sacramento Symphony Chorus.
He directed the choir of the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles. He was in demand as an adjudicator and choral clinician and often invited to conduct “honor choirs.” In 1991 McNeil was honored by his alma mater, UCLA, as Alumnus of the Year in the area of Professional Excellence. In 1994 McNeil was honored with the title of Honorary Life Member in the Puerto Rican Choir Directors Society. He was on the board of directors for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Chorus America, and the Neighborhood Music School. He served two terms as member of the Choral Panel, the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a Life Member of the American Choir Directors Association, having appeared before that prestigious organization with the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers in 1981, 1985, and 1997.
Jerome Rosen
(1921–2011)
Bachelor of Arts in music, UC Berkeley
Master of Arts in music composition, UC Berkeley
When the University established the Department of Music in 1958, Jerome Rosen was the chair. He helped to write both the undergraduate and graduate degree curricula. He retired in 1988.
While studying at UC Berkeley, Rosen became associated with Darius Milhaud, who was teaching at Mills College. In 1949-50 he studied in Paris with Milhaud and took lessons at the Paris Conservatoire from the leading clarinet virtuoso of the era, Ulysse Delécluse.
He went to Paris as the recipient of a UC Berkeley prize, the George Ladd Prix de Paris. Rosen also received Fromm Music Foundation grants (1953, 1954, and 1960), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1958), and a residency at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy (1982).
Rosen was a composer of sixty works of solo and chamber music, often including clarinet or saxophone, as well as vocal pieces, works of symphonic scope and the operas Calisto and Melibea (1979) and Emperor Norton of the USA (1999), both produced in Main Theatre.
Wayne Slawson
(1923–2022)
Slawson’s compositions include works for various chamber ensembles, chorus and orchestra. He is best known for his theories about an aspect of timbre called “sound color” and his compositions of computer music that apply those theories. His programming system, SYNTAL, is an adaptation of a computer speech synthesizer to music composition.
He has published in the fields of computer music, psychoacoustics, and music theory. His book, Sound Color (University of California Press, 1985), won the first Outstanding Publication Award of the Society for Music Theory in 1986. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Music Theory, Music Perception, and Music Theory Spectrum. Slawson earned his doctorate from Harvard University.
Richard Swift
(1927–2003)
Master’s in music composition, University of Chicago
Richard Swift was a noted composer and one of the founding editors of the UC Press journal 19th-Century Music. In the 1970s he also served on the editorial board of this leading scholarly publisher. He earned his master’s in music composition at the University of Chicago in 1956, studying under Leonard Meyer and Leland Smith, and he taught at the University of California, Davis, from 1956 to 1991 where he was a pillar of the arts and humanities and established the artist-in-residence program while serving as the Music department chair from 1963 to 1971. His music compositions encompass the traditional genres, including songs to texts by major poets in his acquaintance. He was a rigorous composer, a valued theorist, and a gifted teacher.
William E. Valente
(1934–93)
William E. Valente (1934–1993) was professor of music at UC Davis from 1950 to 1993. He taught music theory and composition, was an undergraduate adviser for the Department, and conductor of the University Concert Band. In honor and memory of Professor Valente and his impact on the many students he taught, guided, and inspired during his life as a mentor, an endowment was established in name: The William E. Valente Music Scholarship Fund.
He attended the University of Tulsa and Harvard University, where he studied composition with Leon Kirchner. He was assistant professor in music at Fisk University and visiting assistant professor of music at Vassar College, joining the Department of Music at UC Davis in 1972. He received numerous awards and commissions for new compositions, including concerti for cello and for piano with orchestra and works for symphonic band and for chorus (including two masses).