Kent Kennan Night Soliloquy

Kent Kennan Night Soliloquy Program Notes

Kent Kennan composed little, if anything, in his last 65 years. Yet Howard Hanson recorded some of his music with the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra for Mercury Records, and he probably received encouragement to compose more. Instead, he concentrated on his teaching, which for most of his career was at the University of Texas in Austin, with some shorter times at Kent State and Ohio State (and briefly as a bandmaster in the US Army during WW II). He wrote one of the primary books on Orchestration used in the USA. This piece, the Night Soliloquy, was a favorite of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and players from the orchestra will tell of it being performed as an encore, especially on tour.

Born: April 18, 1913, Milwaukee, WI
Died: November 1, 2003, Austin, TX