Discipline: Music Composition

Michael Hennagin

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Norman, OK
MacDowell Fellowships: 1981
Michael Hennagin (1936-1993) was an American composer and university professor. He studied composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and at summer festivals in Aspen and Tanglewood. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud and Aaron Copland. Hennagin began his professional career as a Hollywood composer and arranger working in film and television. He composed in all media, and music for both instrumental and vocal ensembles, including frequently performed pieces for choir, symphonic band and orchestra, and percussion ensemble. Notable compositions include soundtracks for “The DuPont Show of the Week” and the television series “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” ballet scores for the Lester Horton Dance Theater in Los Angeles, and his Duo Chopinesque for Percussion Ensemble and Walking on the Green Grass for Choir are performed frequently. His compositions are published by Walton Music, Southern Music Company, and Boosey and Hawkes. He received awards from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) recognizing his continued commercial influence and success, and he was named National Composer of the Year in 1975 by the Music Teachers National Association.

Studios

Sprague-Smith

Michael Hennagin worked in the Sprague-Smith studio.

In January of 1976, the original Sprague-Smith Studio — built in 1915–1916 and funded by music students of Mrs. Charles Sprague-Smith of the Veltin School — was destroyed by fire. Redesigned by William Gnade, Sr., a Peterborough builder, the fieldstone structure was rebuilt the same year from the foundation up, reusing the original fieldstone. A few…

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