Discipline: Music Composition

Richard Owen

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1972, 1973, 1975, 1979, 1985
Richard Owen (1922-2015) was an American composer and United States federal judge in the Southern District of New York. Owen "dabbled in music all his life." He studied piano as a child and again once he finished law school. He studied composition with Vittorio Giannini and Robert Starer. His opera Abigail Adams, based on the lives of the second president and his wife, was first produced in 1987. Five of his art songs were published by the General Music Publishing Company between 1962 and 1973; they are known for their declamation and dramatic qualities.

Studios

Veltin

Richard Owen worked in the Veltin studio.

Veltin Studio was donated by alumni of the Veltin School, a school for girls in New York with a highly respected visual arts department. As the plaque just outside the entrance attests, this studio was used by poet Edwin Arlington Robinson during most of the 24 summers he spent at MacDowell. Perhaps most famously, Thornton Wilder put the finishing…

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