Discipline: Music Composition

Allan Willman

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Laramie, WY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1940
Allan Arthur Willman (1909-1989) was an American classical pianist, composer, music educator, and longtime chairman of the Department of Music at the University of Wyoming. Willman was a vanguard creator and influential exponent of twentieth-century contemporary music. As chairman of the music department at the University of Wyoming, he is credited with rapidly expanding music arts within the institution. He led the development of a more comprehensive Music Department for aspiring academicians and professionals in performance, composition, education, and musicology. Between 1940 and 1950, enrollment in the Music Department quadrupled. Willman was founder of the Wyoming Music Teachers Association; and—with Wyoming businessman and composer George William Hufsmith, Jr. (1924–2002), and Casper conductor Ernest Gilbert Hagen (1913–2000)—Willman was co-founder of the Grand Teton Music Festival in 1962.

Studios

MacDowell

Allan Willman worked in the MacDowell studio.

Built in 1912, Pine Studio was renamed MacDowell Studio in 1943 in recognition of support from a group of Edward MacDowell’s music students. It was built as a composers’ studio and the stuccoed walls were intended to be soundproof. Like many of the studios on property, MacDowell was winterized in the 1950s when the program began welcoming…

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