Alumni Gazette
APPLAUSE: Robert Ward ’39E (above) poses with Eastman students rehearsing for a 2005 Eastman Opera Theatre production of his opera Claudia Legare (below). The Pulitzer Prize–winning composer will receive the nation’s highest opera honor this fall. (Photo: Gelfand-Piper Photography)Robert Ward ’39E, a composer whose honors include the Pulitzer Prize, a New York Music Critics Circle Citation, three Guggenheim Fellowships, and an Eastman School Alumni Achievement Award, earned his greatest recognition of all in July: the 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honor.
The honor that many regard as the highest in opera recognizes a lifetime of major contributions to the art form. Over more than 70 years, until his retirement in 1989, Ward composed, directed, taught, and administered—at Juillard, Columbia, and Duke, and for the U.S. Army band during World War II.
His 1962 opera, The Crucible, based on the play by Arthur Miller, which earned him the Pulitzer, is perhaps his best-known work from a catalog that includes eight operas, seven symphonies, four concertos, and many shorter works.
Ward and three other recipients will receive their awards at a concert and ceremony in Washington, D.C., in October.
—Karen McCally
