Merrill Bradshaw
Merrill Bradshaw (June 18, 1929 – July 12, 2000) was an American composer and professor at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he was composer-in-residence from 1967 to 1994.
Bradshaw grew up in Lyman, Wyoming; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Portland, Oregon.
4 (1969), "Psalm XCVI" (1979), Four Mountain Sketches (1974), the oratorio The Restoration (1974), and a viola concerto titled Homages (1979).
[1] While in Lyman, Bradshaw traveled 120 miles (190 km) on Saturdays to study piano with Frank Asper.
[2] Bradshaw started undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1947, where he was mentored by John R.
[4] After returning from his mission, he was accepted into BYU's A Capella choir, where he met Janet Spilsbury, whom he married in 1953.
[6] He was an assistant director of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps Male Chorus for one year and graduated in music theory in 1954.
[20] The committee planned to make some hymns lower to encourage everyone to sing the melody line and to include more international songs.
[27] Bradshaw won the composer's award while attending the University of Illinois, and Michael Kurkjian performed his piano concerto in 1958.
"[29] Daniel McDavitt, writing on Bradshaw for his dissertation, wrote that the work was "rich in symbolism but lacking in overall coherence.
[31] A local critic wrote that "his usage of the myriad of contemporary compositional devices show him to be a master craftsman.
"[32] Glenn R. Williams, a professor of music, wrote that the symphony is "a very lyrical outpouring within the framework of the serial or 12-tone composition" and that the scoring "effectively produce[d] an amazing clarity and balance of the orchestral sonorities.
"[33] Bradshaw wrote "Feathers" for the 1968 BYU Summer Music Clinic in honor of Bernard Goodman.
The piece employs a chromatic style, with some polyphony, at times dividing into 12 parts, with many differing rhythmic figures.
[37] Critic Donald Dierks noted that the style of the pieces is old-fashioned; he wrote: "the idiom would have been passé in the 1940s.
Assistant to the university president Lorin Wheelwright wrote that the work would "give our Church members a new sense of confidence in our cultural roots and modes of artistic expression.
"[43] In the Deseret News, Harold Lundstrom wrote that the work was emotionally expressive but "hardly [...] a traditional oratorio."
[46] Jun Takahira premiered the work in 1980, with David Dalton directing the U.S. Air Force Orchestra.
"[50] His distaste for sentiment was apparent in his scathing review of a performance of Mantovani: "Anyone who went to the concert looking for artistic excellence must have come away disappointed unless they were fooled by the 'ballyhoo' and showmanship that preceded the 'concert'.
