RALEIGH - It's usually Robert Ward in the audience, listening to musicians play what he has written. But on his 90th birthday, the roles were reversed.

Close to 300 admirers -- many of them the Triangle's most accomplished musicians and opera singers -- rose to their feet in an ovation and an operatic round of "Happy Birthday" while the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer had the stage all to himself.

Opera companies, orchestras and chamber ensembles across the country have commissioned, performed and recorded Ward's operas, symphonies, songs and other works. But the crowd that gathered Sept. 13 at Ravenscroft School's Jones Theatre came to see him receive the Old North State Award, presented on behalf of the governor, for what he has meant to North Carolina.

Ward, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for music for "The Crucible," his opera based on the Arthur Miller play. Five years later, he became the second chancellor of the N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. He also taught at Duke University for nearly a decade, helped launch the Triangle's opera scene and has continued to compose in his distinctly American style.

"He certainly is one of the handful of people in the second half of the 20th century who really bolstered the visibility and significance of the arts in North Carolina," composer-conductor Scott Tilley, a former student of Ward's at the School of the Arts, said in an interview last week. "He made North Carolina the state of the arts perhaps more so than any other single person I can think of."

The ceremony at Ravenscroft -- Ward was commissioned to write the school song in 1992 -- capped a long day. That morning he had picked up one of his daughters from the airport; a son and two grandchildren arrived in town later. In the afternoon, he sat in the piano room of the Forest at Duke, the resortlike retirement community in Durham where he has lived for 15 years, and talked about what his life of music has been like.

"I've never sat around feeling that I hadn't been able to realize what I wanted to do," he says.

An ear for lyricism

For Ward, it all began with the voice.

He grew up in Ohio as a boy soprano singing everything he could -- show tunes, operetta, choir music in a Presbyterian church -- and that gave him an ear for lyricism in the music he would write.

At the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., he studied with Howard Hanson, a composer who romanticized the American heartland. His musical education continued unexpectedly in the Army during World War II. He had barely arrived for boot camp at Fort Riley, Kan., when the base commander called him and a few others into his office.

"We had no idea what this was all about," Ward says. "He asked whether we could do an all-soldiers show based on Fort Riley. Well, it was a silly question because we jumped to it."

Pulled out of basic training, the musicians mounted the show, with Ward employing the increasingly popular jazz. The Army sent them on tour for the next half a year. Ward then led the 7th Infantry Division band, which included three smaller groups: "a swing band -- a very hot one -- a sort of Guy Lombardo, commercial band, and a [Benny] Goodman sextet." Ward wrote for all three and fronted the swing band.

At mid-century, young American composers began traveling to Europe, where they were exposed to emerging forms of classical music. Ward's generation was further influenced by prominent European proponents of the avant-garde who came to this country.

Ward says he took an interest for a while and used the revolutionary ideas in some of his compositions. But ultimately he found the sound unsatisfying and never fully embraced it. He returned to his earlier influences: hymns, jazz and early American composers.

Next page >