Composer, conductor, and music critic of the New York HERALD TRIBUNE for fourteen years, VIRGIL THOMSONwas born in Kansas City, graduated from. Harvard, and came to his maturity in Paris, where he studied under Nadia Boulanger. He is probably best known in America for his opera FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS and for his symphonies and concertos. A new book about him, VIRGIL THOMSON: HIS LIFE AND MUSIC,by Kathleen Hoover and John Cage, is to be published this month.
Composer and music critic, VIRGIL THOMSON graduated from Harvard in 1922 and then went to Paris, where he studied under Nadia Boulanger and began the writing of symphonies and chamber music, and where his friendship with Gertrude Stein eventually led to their collaboration on two operas, Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All. As the music critic of the New York Herald Tribune he took part in a recent symposium at Harvard, the addresses for which will be published as Music and Criticism: A Symposium.