Randall Thompson (b. 1899, New York City; d. 1984, Boston)

Although he did not come from a musical family, Randall Thompson attained the position of school organist as a student at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. He entered Harvard University in 1916 and auditioned for the Harvard Glee Club. Conductor Archibald T. Davidson rejected him, and Thompson later concluded, “My life has been an attempt to strike back!”

In fact, he achieved enormous success as a composer of choral music and a highly respected music educator. In 1924, Thompson studied at the American Academy in Rome. There, he wrote the first of his significant choral compositions, the five Odes of Horace. In 1927 he was appointed assistant professor of music at Wellesley College. Thereafter, he taught at Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Virginia, and Harvard. He served as director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where his students included Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein.

Between 1932 and 1935, Thompson organized a survey that dramatically changed the teaching of choral music, resulting in college choirs becoming significantly more competent and professional. His choral compositions include The Peaceable Kingdom, based on texts from the book of Isaiah; Frostiana, a musical score set to the poetry of Robert Frost; Mass of the Holy Spirit; Requiem; The Nativity; The Passion; and his best-known and most widely performed work, the “Alleluia.” Thompson also wrote three symphonies, two string quartets, and several instrumental pieces.