Webster A. Young is a composer of symphonies, ballets and operas.
Career Young is the composer whose symphony performance is followed in the 2022 film 6000 Miles to Ukraine seen on many PBS stations in 2022–23. His most recent recorded CDs are The Cafe Guitar and The Best Violin Melodies of W. A. Young at Spotify and other music streaming sites. He was the most prolific composer for ballet in the US in the 1980s, before Martins/Torke, working with Eric Hyrst, formerly of the Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, New York City Ballet, and The Royal Ballet of England.The 1990 International Who's Who in Music Young appears with Eric Hyrst in the film Two for Ballet, available from Cinema Guild, New York. More recently he has appeared in Return to Aspen and 6000 Miles to Ukraine on Rocky Mountain PBS (2022) In 1992, Two for Ballet was seen on 63 PBS stations nationwide.IMDB, information on Webster Young The Jerome Robbins Dance Collection at Lincoln Center, New York, has an extensive file on Eric Hyrst's career that also includes videos of the first three Hyrst-Young ballets.New York Public Library, Lincoln Center Young was the artistic director of the Long Island Opera Company from 1998 to 2003.Webster Young: Brief Biography Young was the first composer in many decades to set Shakespeare's As You Like It to music as an opera in four acts. Soprano, tenor, and baritone operas from it are published at MusicNotes.com, and several performances are in videos at YouTube and Vimeo.See Youtube.com under Webster Young Now on his Opus 212. Among his most recent works are several pieces for unaccompanied cello, published in paperback at Amazon books, as well as numerous pieces for classical guitar, six of which appear in Ballades and Airs, also at Amazon books."Prades Prelude for Unaccompanied Cello: with Eurydice and Suite No. 1 (Classical Music Scores)", Amazon Books Other recent works include 20 tangos"Romance de Tango (Classical Music Scores)", Amazon Books and 10 salsa pieces for orchestra, some also arranged for piano. Opera arias and piano music published at MusicNotes.com. Full opera orchestra scores are available at Amazon books."As You Like It: An Opera in Four Acts, Vol. 2 (Classical Music Scores)", Amazon Books Young studied composition with Richard Swift, Andrew Frank, Giampaolo Bracali, and notably with Charles Jones, who was a close friend of Darius Milhaud.The Palaces of Music, Editions d'Auteurs, Amazon.com, Webster Young
Family Young is related through his grandmother, Seena Harbach Purdy, to Otto Harbach, the Broadway lyricist and playwright, who was his great uncle. Otto Harbach's oldest brother, Adolphe, Webster Young's great-grandfather, was a band conductor. Young's paternal grandfather, Owen Young, was a semi professional watercolor landscape painter, of whose works a few hundred paintings are extant.The Naked Composer, Editions d'Auteurs, Amazon.com/books/Webster Young Webster Young is the author of five books, all at Amazon.com, including Berkeley-Paris Express (2017), The Palaces of Music (2012), The Little Flowers of the Desert Brothers (2017), and Music in the Church (2021).
Works Operas The Wrong Party (1994) (comedy) The Sun Also Rises (1996) (permission granted by the Hemingway estate 1995) Madrid (1998) (libretto based on Hemingway) Stocks, Bonds, and Doggerel (1999) (comedy) As You Like It (2000) (Libretto from Shakespeare's play) Orpheus (2002) (based on the myth and The Bacchae by Euripides)
Symphonies Symphony 1977 – "Davis to Paris" Symphony No. 2 1982 Symphony No. 3 "California" Symphony No. 4 "Oregon" Symphony No. 5 "The Gold Guitar" (2014)
Ballets All were created with Eric Hyrst, choreographer (1927–1996).Palaces of Music, Editions D'Auteurs, Amazon.com/books
Summer Ballet (1985) (4 act scenario by Young) Album (1985) (based on Commedia dell'arte by Hyrst) Polonaise (1986) (abstract, by Hyrst) Vintage (1987) (scenario by Young) Tango (1987) (abstract by Hyrst) Ballet Scenes 1987 (scenario by Hyrst) Waltzes (1988) (scenario by Young) The Judgement of Paris (1989) (based on the myth by Hyrst & Young) Air for Strings (1990) (abstract by Hyrst)
Books Music, Painting, and Jung (2012) The Little Flowers of the Desert Brothers (2017) The Palaces of Music (2017) Music in the Church (2021)
References