Disciplines: Music Composition

Douglas Moore

Disciplines: Music Composition
Residencies: 1916, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1927, 1928, 1935, 1937
Douglas Moore (1893-1969) was an American composer, educator, and author. He wrote music for the theater, film, ballet, and orchestra, but his greatest fame is associated with his operas The Devil and Daniel Webster (1938) and The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956). 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 was hired as director of music at the Cleveland Museum of Art. 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. 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 while at Yale together with poet and Hotchkiss School mate Archibald MacLeish and later in collaboration with John Jacob Niles.