Russell Woollen
[Charles] Russell Woollen (born Hartford, Connecticut January 7, 1923, died March 16, 1994) was an American keyboard artist and composer.
This early connection with the Catholic Church and choral music made his high school choice of the Pius X, a minor seminary in New York City, a natural one.
"[1] During this period, he spent a summer working with Father Franz Wasner at a music camp in New Hampshire and studied organ with Ernest White at the Anglican Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York.
Between 1953 and 1955 Woollen secured a sabbatical leave to study composition with Walter Piston at Harvard, which gave him a "rock-bottom confidence [in] writing for the orchestra.
Another significant early work is Woollen's opera, The Decorator (1958), which was commissioned by the National Broadcasting Corporation for the network's "Catholic Hour."
This humorous work depicts the turmoil caused by the invasion of a new suburban home by the hired interior decorator, who overwhelms the unsuspecting couple with "the things that can be done to make their house competitive with its neighbors.
Woollen wrote several works during this transitional period, including a setting of Donne's sonnets, La Corona (1967–71), and the moving In martyrum memoriam (1968–9), a forty-five-minute cantata for choir, soloists, and orchestra based on texts from the Bible, the Roman Catholic Mass for Martyrs, and the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Woollen continued to compose prolifically during the 1970s, producing a second symphony (1977–8), Two pieces for Piano and Orchestra (1975–6), and numerous smaller works, both vocal and instrumental.
In 1975 he was commissioned by the National Symphony to complete Robert Evett's sketch of Monadnock, a cantata for soprano, bass, mixed chorus, and orchestra based on texts by Mark Twain.
This article is substantially drawn from Patrick M. O'Shea's A Stylistic and Structural Analysis of Russell Woollen's La Corona, DMA dissertation, Arizona State University, 1995, and is used by permission.
