H. Owen Reed (1910-2014) was born in Odessa, Missouri and retired from the faculty of Michigan State University in 1976 after 37 years of teaching. He was educated at Louisiana State University and the Eastman School of Music where he completed the Ph.D in music composition. He studied privately with Bohuslav Martinu, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris and Leonard Bernstein. Perhaps his best known work, La Fiesta Mexicana, has become a staple of the band repertoire. Dr. Reed passed away in January 2014 at the age of 103, and regularly played piano until shortly before his death.
For many years his works for band were out-of-print, but are available again exclusively through Ballerbach Music and Bandworks Publications. We are proud to be able to offer five of Dr Reed’s classic compositions to our customers, and we wish to thank composer James Syler and Ballerbach Publications for collaborating with us on what we mutually feel is a worthy endeavor.
“Owen Reed was my teacher and mentor from 1965 to 1970 at Michigan State University. He hired me almost immediately to be his music copyist (by hand, in ink, no computers!) and it was that training and close working relationship with him that set me on the track of becoming a real composer. His music grew out of the rich American tradition of Hanson, Harris, Copland and Bernstein, and was always full of its own life. His example has remained with me throughout my composing life.” – David Maslanka, Composer