Merton Brown (May 5, 1913,

Berlin, Vermont Berlin ( ) is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States, founded in 1763. The population was 2,849 at the 2020 census. Being the town between Barre and Montpelier, the two largest cities in the region, much of the commercial busines ...

– February 20, 2001,

Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown is the oldest Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Also called Mishawum by the Massachusett, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Bost ...

) was an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

who studied with Wallingford Riegger and

Carl Ruggles Carl Ruggles (born Charles Sprague Ruggles; March 11, 1876 – October 24, 1971) was an American composer, painter and teacher. His pieces employed "dissonant counterpoint", a term coined by fellow composer and musicologist Charles Seeger to ...

. He often collaborated with

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

s including former

Martha Graham Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer, teacher and choreographer, whose style, the Graham technique, reshaped the dance world and is still taught in academies worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over s ...

dancer Matti Haim,

José Limón José Arcadio Limón (January 12, 1908 – December 2, 1972) was a dancer and choreographer from Mexico and who developed what is now known as 'Limón technique'. In the 1940s, he founded the José Limón Dance Company (now the Limón Dan ...

, and Thomas Hewitt. Virgil Thomson describes him as a " neo-contrapuntalist" influenced by

and involved with "rounded material", but not so much with the "personalized sentiment" involved in

neoromanticism The term neo-romanticism is used to cover a variety of movements in philosophy, literature, music, painting, and architecture, as well as social movements, that exist after and incorporate elements from the era of Romanticism. It has been used ...

. Thomson, Virgil. 2002. ''Virgil Thomson: A Reader: Selected Writings, 1924–1984'', edited by

Richard Kostelanetz Richard Cory Kostelanetz (born May 14, 1940) is an American artist, author, and critic. Birth and education Kostelanetz was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the conductor Andre Kostelanetz. He has a B.A. (1962) fr ...

, p. 268. New York: Routledge. .

Works

*''Cantabile'' for string orchestra *Concerto Breve for string orchestra *Concerto Grosso for band *Consort for Four Voices for string quartet or two pianos *Movement for string quartet *String Trio for violin, viola, and cello *''Chorale to Olin Stephens'' for string quintet or string orchestra *''Three Motets'' for string quartet *Trio for flute, violin, and cello *''Arioso'' for piano *''Sonata in One Movement'' for piano *Piano Sonata *''Toccata'' for piano *''Three Etudes'' for piano *''Three Songs (Rilke)'' for voice and string trio *''Two Songs'' for voice and piano *''Cat Duets'' (written for David Edgar Walther) *''Poems of James Joyce''

Sources

1913 births 2001 deaths People from Berlin, Vermont 20th-century American classical composers American male classical composers 20th-century American male musicians {{US-composer-20thC-stub