Robert D. Crowley papers , circa 1947-1978

CROWLEY , ROBERT DENNIS Composer, Teacher, Scholar. Bob was born on April 12, 1921, in Great Falls, Montana, the only son of James Dunlop Crowley and Gladys Lucille Crowley, nee Stone. He entered Reed College in 1941, returning there after service in the Army Air Corp band during the Second World War. In 1949, he became Reed's first graduate to major in music. Further studies included counterpoint with Darius Milhaud at Mills College's summer school and composition with Ernest Bloch, Roger Sessions and Andrew Imbrie. He gained an MA from the University of California at Berkeley in 1960. With Isadore Tinkleman, he co-founded the Community Music Center under the auspices of the Portland Park Bureau, teaching there on evenings and Saturdays for many years. Throughout the 1960s and '70s he taught music theory, history and analysis at Portland State College (later University). His compositions include an early string quartet and brass quintet; an oratorio For the Time Being (1984); music for the modern dance choreographers Cornelia Cerf (1950), Bonnie Bird (Yesterday's Children, 1952), and Marjorie Church (Passing Stranger 1959); scores for two short films by Harry Paget: one for Multnomah County (about 1955) and one about Lewis and Clark for the Oregon Historical Society called Roots of a Tree (1958), his MA ''thesis,'' Festoons and Garlands for string orchestra (1960); a short opera, An American Travesty for the Portland Art Museum faculty's Dada exhibition (1961); Toccata for trumpet and orchesta, which was performed twice by Jim Smith and the Portland Symphony Orchestra in 1961 and '62; Colluctation, a brass piece for the joint installation of presidents of Reed and Portland State; Tintabulation (1965); a piece for saxophone and piano for Bob Jones; incidental music for plays, including Brecht's Galileo; and an unfinished opera. Having a keen social conscience, he was active in the Oregon Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and in the peace movement. For years he kept a weekly silent lunchtime vigil in the Park Blocks ''Until Americans Stop Killing and Being Killed in Viet Nam.'' Although not a virtuoso on any instrument, he played several usefully. His passion for music-making took various forms: from performing on jazz trumpet or double bass in dance bands to playing the viola da gamba in early music ensembles; from leading folk-singing with his guitar in Mt. Tabor and Irving Park to busking on his soprano recorder in Pike Place Market (Seattle) or the London Underground. Always a champion of intellectual rigour, especially in the study of music, he never stopped learning. Other projects included study of the Bach Suites for Solo Cello (in all available edition and arrangements) and a paper on permutaton fugue and invertible counterpoint.

Source Obituary, The Oregonian on April 17, 2004