Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American composer, radio commentator, music critic and author.

In 1916 he wrote the cantata The Chambered Nautilus, followed by Through the Looking-Glass (for orchestra) in 1918, earning him public praise and recognition.

The basic style of even his later works is academically post-Romantic, resisting any influence of progressive trends except perhaps in orchestration.

In the long-unseen roadshow version of Fantasia, issued on DVD in 2000 and re-released on the 2010 Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray release, all of Taylor's voice-over work was re-recorded by veteran voice artist Corey Burton.

The complete film was originally 124 minutes long, due almost entirely to the fact that Taylor's commentaries were more detailed in the roadshow version.

In that version, Taylor's commentaries were severely abridged (bar the introduction to Toccata and Fugue in D Minor).

[17] That same year, he served the same role as Master of Ceremonies for the classical portion of a "Carousel of American Music", a famous concert series held in San Francisco on September 24.

The concert had Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, WC Handy, Johnny Mercer, and many more of America's top songwriting talents performing their own compositions.

(The original release was titled "Cavalcade of American Music" and includes a performance of Taylor's own work "Circus Day".)

[citation needed] Taylor also recorded commentary for other Mercury recordings: Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the 1958 stereophonic re-make of the 1812 Overture and Frederick Fennell's ground-breaking two-album "The Civil War," which featured original music played on period instruments and sound-montages, narrated by Taylor, of period weaponry and music.

[citation needed] Taylor's other personal friendships ranged from composers George Gershwin, Vincent Youmans and Jerome Kern to novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ayn Rand.

The Deems Taylor Award "recognizes books, articles, broadcasts and websites on the subject of music selected for their excellence.