Gordon Binkerd

Gordon Ware Binkerd (1916-2003) was an American classical music composer and pianist. He was an eminent composer who wrote highly productive works for his music genre. His best known compositions include Essays for Piano no. 1, Tomorrow the Fox Will Come to Town, and Through Your Strangeness Frets My Heart.

Background and early life

Binkerd was born in Lynch, Nebraska on May 22, 1916. He was the eldest of three boys from Archibald and Verna Jones Binkerd. His talent was first discovered at age fifteen when he was chosen as one of the five best pianists in America, at a national competition in Gregory, South Dakota; where him and his family settled due to his father’s Bell Telephone company. In 1933, young Binkerd left home to attend Dakota Wesley College in Mitchell, South Dakota. He benefited at this college from associations with musicians such as Gail Kubik and Rusell Danburg. Binkerd was also influenced by teachers who nurtured his interest in literature and poetry at Wesleyan.

In 1940, Binkerd began advanced study at the Eastman School of Music, but his composer talent began to ripen when he entered Harvard College in 1946. As a candidate for the PhD in musicology, his absorption of music of the past provided a historical base of knowledge that framed his compositional perspective. At Harvard, his skills were refined as a student of Walter Piston and as teaching assistant to Irving Fine. Also, at Harvard he broke a habitual response for a pianist of composing at the piano.

Binkerd left Harvard in 1949 to become a theorist and composer at the University of Illinois. Each summer he participated in retreats in New Hampshire and New York in order to compose.

In the mid 1960's, Binkerd entered into a contract for the publication of all his music with the New York publishing House, Boosey & Hawkes. By that time, he had already written three symphonies; a piano sonata; two string quartets; a growing list of sonatas for wind and string instruments and a large quantity of chamber, choral and vocal music, which his publisher began to release in 1965. Six years later, he retired from academics to fully devote himself to writing music. During the next 25 years he wrote until the onset of Alzheimer's disease in 1996 which brought compositional activities to an end.

Death

Binkerd died of Alzheimer's disease Friday, September 5, 2003 at his Urbana home.

As a blooming composer Gordon was the first professor at the University of Illinois to become a member of its Center for Advanced Study in the year 1959, only entering as a regular teacher in the year of 1949. He then became a Guggenheim fellowship member also in the year of 1959. In the late years of 1964 Gordon received the National Institute of Arts and Letters award. As a Composer he received many commissions for music from such places as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the University of Illinois, South Dakota State University, the Fromm Music foundation and the ford foundation in the year 1973. Later on in the year 1987, Dakota Wesleyan University honored Gordon as its Alumnus of the Year, following in the year 1996, DWU awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts toward Gordon.

• Sonatina for Flute and Piano (1947)
• Sonata for Cello and Piano (composed in 1952, First major work)
• Symphony No. 1 (composed in 1954)
• Symphony No. 2 (1956-57)
• String Quartet No. 1 (1957)
• And I am Old to Know (composed in 1959)
• Symphony No. 3 (1959)
• Three Canzonas (1960)
• Shut out that Moon (1968)
• Three Songs for Mezzo-Soprano and String Quartet (1971)

• Alleluia for St. Francis. For medium voice and piano. <[Words] from the Roman-Seraphic Missal.> (1977)
• Sonatina for Flute and Piano (B.W.I. 245) (1972)
• Binkerd: Secret Love (Voice/Cello/Harp) - Vocal Solo Sheet Music
• Binkerd: O Darling Room - Vocal Solo Sheet Music