Joseph Wagner (1900-1974) was an American conductor, composer, and teacher. He was a student of Converse (composition) at the New England Cons, of Music in Boston (diploma, 1923). After further training from Casella in Boston (1927), he studied at Boston University (B.M., 1932). In 1934-35 he completed his studies with Boulanger (composition) and Monteux (conducting) in Paris, as well as with Weingartner (conducting) in Basel.
From 1923 to 1944 he was assistant director of music in the Boston public schools. He also was founder-conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra (1925-44) and a teacher at Boston University (1929-40). He taught at Brooklyn College (1945-47) and at Hunter College (1945-56) in N.Y., and was conductor of the Duluth Symphony Orchestra (1947-50) and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica in San José (1950-54). In 1961 he became a professor at Pepperdine College in Los Angeles. He published the useful books Orchestration: A Practical Handbook (N.Y., 1958) and Band Scoring (N.Y., 1960). His music was distinguished by excellent craftsmanship, and was set in a fairly advanced idiom, with bitonality as a frequent recourse in his later works.
