Douglas Moore - Biography

Biography

Moore was born in Cutchogue, Long Island, New York, and his ancestors can be traced back to the first settlers arriving to Long Island. He was an alumnus of the Hotchkiss School and Yale University. Moore earned two degrees from Yale University, a B.A. in 1915, then a B.Mus in 1917.

Moore served in the Navy as a lieutenant, after which he studied music with Nadia Boulanger, Vincent d'Indy and Ernest Bloch in Paris.

Moore served as president of the National Institute and American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1953 - 1956. He had been a member since 1941.

In 1921, Moore went to Cleveland as Director of Music at the Cleveland Museum of Art, during which he studied with Ernest Bloch at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and performed in plays at The Cleveland Play House. He made his debut as a composer and conductor in 1923 conducting his Four Museum Pieces with the Cleveland Orchestra. In 1926, Moore joined the music faculty at Columbia University, where he remained until his retirement in 1962. He was an effective and appreciated teacher whose genial manner made him popular amongst students.

His teaching often included studies of contemporary music and at one point invited Béla Bartók for a small seminar in one of his classes. In 1954 he was a co-founder, with Otto Luening and Oliver Daniel, of the CRI (Composers Recordings, Inc.) record label.

Apart from classical compositions, Moore also composed several popular songs whilst at Yale together with poet and Hotchkiss School mate Archibald MacLeish and later in collaboration with John Jacob Niles. These songs were later published in 1921 under the collective title "Songs my Mother never taught Me". He later collaborated with fellow Yale alumnus Stephen Vincent Benet on the folk opera The Devil and Daniel Webster.

He wrote two books on music, Listening to Music (1932) and From Madrigal to modern Music (1942).

Moore lived his entire life in the family home Salt Meadow in Cutchogue, where his studio faced a tidal inlet. Douglas Moore died in the Eastern Long Island Hospital in the neighboring village of Greenport, Long Island in 1969.