A Tribute to Irving Fine
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Music Division
Irving Fine (1914-62)
Each year, we celebrate the life, legacy and music of composer, educator and founder of the Brandeis School of Creative Arts Irving Fine, known for his remarkable gift for lyricism, whose masterfully crafted scores inevitably "sing." Aaron Copland wrote that his music "wins us over through its keenly conceived sonorities and its fully realized expressive content," praising it for "elegance, style, finish and a convincing continuity." Virgil Thomson cited an "unusual melodic grace."
Fine's initial training was in piano and he became a skilled pianist admired by colleagues for his superior sightreading ability. Composition and theory studies were with Walter Piston and Edward Burlingame Hill at Harvard University and with Nadia Boulanger in France and at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition, Fine studied choral conducting with Archibald T. Davison at Harvard and orchestral conducting with Serge Koussevitzky, at Tanglewood. At Harvard, where he became a close associate of Copland, Stravinsky, Koussevitzky and Leonard Bernstein, he taught theory and music history from 1939-50. At Brandeis University, he taught composition and theory from 1950-62.
Fine also conducted the Harvard Glee Club, and for nine summers between 1946-57 taught composition at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. At Brandeis, he was Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Music and chairman of the School of Creative Arts. Read more on the Irving Fine Society website.
Source: Library of Congress/Phillip Ramey
2025-26 Annual Irving Fine Tribute Concert
Saturday, March 15, 2025 | 7:30 p.m. | Slosberg Music Center
Tickets are free, but assigned seats should be reserved in advance HERE. Free admission is also available at the door.
The Brandeis Music Department presents
Irving Fine Tribute Concert: An evening of music for winds and piano
With Sarah Brady, flute; Elizabeth England, oboe; Rane Moore, clarinet; Sarah Sutherland, French horn; Adrian Morejon, bassoon; Max Levinson, piano
Program
• Leonard Bernstein / Don Stewart: Overture to Candide (1956), transcribed for wind quintet
• Arthur Berger: Quartet for Winds in C major (1941)
• Irving Fine: Partita (1948) for wind quintet
• Margaret Bonds: Troubled Water (1962) for solo piano
• Irving Fine: Diversions (1959-60), version for solo piano
• Irving Fine / Jeff Scott: Diversions (1959-60), transcribed for wind quintet
• Ruth Crawford Seeger: Suite for Wind Quintet (1952)
• Leo Smit: Sextet for wind quintet and piano (1933)