Ross Lee Finney


Ross Lee Finney was an American composer who taught for many years at the University of Michigan.

Life and career

Born in Wells, Minnesota, Finney received his early training at Carleton College and the University of Minnesota and also studied with Nadia Boulanger, Edward Burlingame Hill, Alban Berg and Roger Sessions. In 1928 he spent a year at Harvard University and then joined the faculty at Smith College, where he founded the Smith College Archives and conducted the Northampton Chamber Orchestra. In 1935, his setting of poems by Archibald MacLeish won the Connecticut Valley Prize, and in 1937, his First String Quartet received a Pulitzer Scholarship Award. A Guggenheim Fellowship funded travel in Europe in 1937. During World War II, Finney served in the Office of Strategic Services, and received a Purple Heart and a Certificate of Merit.
In 1948, following a second Guggenheim Fellowship, Finney joined the University of Michigan faculty. There he was the founder of the University of Michigan Electronic Music Studio in 1965 and composed the score for the sesquicentennial celebration of the University of Michigan in 1967. He retired in 1974.
Finney's works were presented at the 1965 Congregation of the Arts at the Hopkins Center of Dartmouth College, at the University of Kansas, the University of Southern California, and for the 1966 Festival of Contemporary Music at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Finney collected many honors, including membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters, honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa and an honorary doctorate from Carleton College. His "Second Symphony" represented the United States at the 1963 Rostrum of International Composers at UNESCO headquarters at Paris.
According to the notes for the Composers Recordings, Inc. recording of Finney's Cello Sonata No. 2, Chromatic Fantasy In E for solo cello and Piano Trio No. 2, he received the Rome Prize in 1960 and the Brandeis Medal in 1968. He is quoted in those notes as having begun writing serial music from time to time beginning in 1950 with his String Quartet No. 6, his next composition after the sonata.
For his students
Finney died on February 4, 1997, at his home in Carmel, California. He was 90.

Music

He wrote eight string quartets, four symphonies as well as other orchestral works, other chamber works and songs. In his later years Finney composed a series of works exploring the nature and experience of memory, which combined serial organization as well as quotations of folk and popular music: Summer in Valley City for concert band; Two Acts for Three Players for clarinet, piano, and percussion; Landscapes Remembered for chamber orchestra; Spaces for orchestra; Variations on a Memory for chamber orchestra; and Skating Down the Sheyenne for band. Finney composed the dance scores Heyoka, The Joshua Tree, and Ahab for Erick Hawkins, and in 1984 completed his first opera, Weep Torn Land, to his own libretto.

Selected worklist

  • Concertos
  • *For violin and orchestra
  • *For piano and orchestra
  • *For percussion and orchestra
  • *For alto saxophone and wind orchestra
  • Orchestral works
  • *Spaces
  • *Four symphonies
  • *"The Nun's Priest's Tale"
  • Chamber music
  • *Eight string quartets
  • *Three violin sonatas
  • *Two cello sonatas
  • *Six piano sonatas
  • *Sonatas for viola
  • *Piano trio in E minor
  • *Piano quartet
  • *2 Piano quintets
  • *"Three Studies in Fours," for four percussionists, 48 percussion instruments
  • *String quintet
  • *Quartet for oboe, violoncello, percussion and piano
  • Song cycles
  • *"A Cycle of Songs to Poems by Archibald MacLeish"
  • *"Chamber music", to words by James Joyce
  • *"Poor Richard," to words by Benjamin Franklin
  • *"Three 17th Century Lyrics," to words by Henry Vaughan, William Shakespeare and John Milton
  • *"Three Love Songs," to words by John Donne
  • *"Still are New Worlds," to words by Johannes Kepler, William Harvey, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, John Milton, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, Henry More, Mark Akenside, and Jean-Pierre Camus
  • *"Christmastime Sonata"
  • *"Pilgrim Psalms"
  • *"Organ Fantasies"
  • *"24 Inventions"
  • *"Variations on a Theme by Alban Berg"

    Books

  • 1947 - The Game of Harmony. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
  • 1958 - Analysis and the Creative Process. Claremont, California: Scripps College.
  • 1991 - Thinking about Music: The Collected Writings of Ross Lee Finney. Frederic Goossen, ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
  • 1992 - Profile of a Lifetime: A Musical Autobiography. New York: C.F. Peters.