H. Owen Reed

Owen Reed studied at University of Missouri, Louisiana State University and Eastman School of Music. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are opera. Employment is recorded with Michigan State University. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father's playing of the old-time fiddle, accompanied by his mother at the piano. In addition to his childhood with musically-inclined parents, he was also attracted to the popular piano music of the 1920s, such as the novelty piano tunes of Zez Confrey, and his family's player piano, which played popular tunes. He studied piano with Odessa's only piano teacher, Mrs. Felts, who attempted to interest him in the music of Bach and Beethoven. In 1937 he enrolled at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he studied composition with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, conducting with Paul White, musicology with Howard Gleason, and music theory with Allen I. McHose. He received a Ph.D. in composition in 1939. In 1942, at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, he studied composition with Bohuslav Martinů, and contemporary music with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Stanley Chappel. In the summer of 1947, he studied composition with Roy Harris at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and also attended lessons with Arnold Schoenberg.

H. Owen Reed joined the composition faculty of Michigan State College in 1939. His career at MSU lasted for nearly 40 years. Reed retired from MSU in 1976. Upon his retirement, MSU granted the title of Professor Emeritus unto Reed. Many of Reed's students have gone on to fame as composers and arrangers, including Howard J. Buss, Loris Chobanian, Clare Fischer, David Gillingham, Adolphus Hailstork, and David Maslanka.

Reed was married twice, for nearly fifty years to Esther, who preceded him in death; and for 31 years to Mary, who traveled the world with him and survived him. He had two daughters, three step-children, fifteen grandchildren, and twenty-two great-grandchildren. Reed was an avid fisherman and world traveler. After starting to play jazz in college, he continued beyond his hundredth year, including membership in a Michigan State faculty combo known as the "Geriatric Six."