Deems Taylor

Joseph Deems Taylor was born on December 22, 1885, in New York City, to JoJo and Katherine Taylor. He attended Ethical Culture Elementary School before enrolling at New York University. Originally intending to pursue architecture, Taylor shifted course toward music composition despite having received minimal formal musical training. He died on July 3, 1966, of leukemia at the age of 80, and is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

Taylor built a multifaceted career as a composer, music critic, radio commentator, broadcaster, and author. His early compositional output included the 1916 cantata The Chambered Nautilus and the 1918 orchestral work Through the Looking-Glass, both of which brought him public recognition. The Metropolitan Opera later commissioned him to write a new opera; Taylor proposed himself for the assignment and was accepted. The resulting work, The King's Henchman, featured a libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay. A second opera, Peter Ibbetson, followed in 1929. His third opera, Ramuntcho — an adaptation of Pierre Loti's 1897 novel — received its world premiere on February 10, 1942, performed by the Philadelphia Opera Company at the Academy of Music, with Dorothy Sarnoff as Gracieuse and William Hess in the title role. The Metropolitan Opera staged more performances of The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson than any operas by any other American composer. Among his students was composer Mary Watson Weaver.

Taylor's journalism career began in earnest in 1921, when he joined the New York World as music critic. He later served as editor of Musical America from 1927 to 1929, and contributed writing to publications including Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. In 1943 he published A Pictorial History of the Movies, one of the few books on cinema history available at the time; Martin Scorsese later referenced it at the opening of his 1995 documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. Taylor's collected writings were compiled by James Pegolotti and published by Routledge in 2007 under the title Deems Taylor: Selected Writings. Pegolotti also authored Deems Taylor: A Biography in 2003.

Broadcasting became a central part of Taylor's professional life. He served as intermission commentator for the New York Philharmonic and appeared as Master of Ceremonies in Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia, a role in which he also helped select the musical program, including the then-controversial Rite of Spring. In the roadshow version of Fantasia — later issued on DVD in 2000 and on Blu-ray in 2010 — Taylor's original commentary was re-recorded by voice artist Corey Burton, as the original audio elements had deteriorated beyond use. That same year, Taylor served as Master of Ceremonies for the classical portion of a concert series held in San Francisco on September 24, featuring Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, W.C. Handy, and Johnny Mercer, among others; the recording, which included a performance of Taylor's own Circus Day, was added to the National Recording Registry in 2016. He also provided commentary for the 1954 Mercury Records album of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, conducted by Antal Dorati with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and recorded commentary for additional Mercury releases, including Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and Frederick Fennell's two-album set The Civil War. By 1949, his program Deems Taylor Concerts aired on more than 100 radio stations. He was a frequent guest on the radio quiz program Information Please, and in the early 1950s appeared as a repeat panelist on the NBC game show Who Said That? and on What's My Line?

Taylor's Broadway credits included the musical The Echo, the play Lucrece — for which he composed incidental music — the production The Alchemist, and Interplay, with his Broadway appearance occurring in 1945. He was a member of the circle surrounding the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, actors, and critics who gathered at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel from 1919 to 1929. He briefly dated Dorothy Parker, and his personal friendships extended to composers George Gershwin, Vincent Youmans, and Jerome Kern, as well as novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ayn Rand. In the 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Taylor was portrayed by actor James LeGros.

Taylor served as the third president of ASCAP, holding the position for six years. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1934. The ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards were established in 1967 in his honor, recognizing excellence in books, articles, broadcasts, and websites on the subject of music.

Taylor married three times. His first marriage, to Jane Anderson in 1910, ended in divorce in 1918. In 1921 he married actress and writer Mary Kennedy; their daughter, Joan Kennedy Taylor, was born in 1926, and the couple divorced in 1934. Following that divorce, Taylor was romantically involved with soprano Colette D'Arville. In 1945 he married costume designer Lucille Watson-Little; they divorced eight years later.