Paul Creston

Paul Creston was born Giuseppe Guttovergi in New York City on October 10, 1906. His family bought him a $10 piano, and at age 8, he began to take lessons. Due to a mediocre teacher, Paul was forced to learn piano mostly on his own. After two years of high school, Creston was forced to drop out, in order to work. It was during his teen years that he changed his name; "Creston" suggested by a high school play he participated in, and "Paul" picked at random. Paul worked in a number of fields: first as an errand boy for a publishing company, then as a bank clerk and an insurance claim examiner. When he arrived home from work, he studdied scores of composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Scarlatti and Ravel. He would then practice piano until midnight, followed by another two to three hours reading (subjects such as history or philosophy). He slept for four hours a night, deciding that if Thomas Edison could get by on that much sleep, so could he. To help him stay awake, he would smoke ground coffee beans in his pipe.

Creston was finally able to get work as a musician when he was hired by a theater to work as an organist for silent movies. Later, he became a church organist as well. In July of 1927, Creston married a dancer named Louise Gotto, who was a member of Martha Graham's company. She is generally credited with sharpening Creston's skill and perception of rhythm. Rhythm would become the cornerstone of Creston's compositional style. He would later write two books on the subject as well.

In 1934, Henry Cowell introduced a work by Creston at a composers' forum at New York's New School for Social Research. This launched the beginning of Creston's career. Four years later he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1941 he received the New York Music Critics' Circle Award for his Symphony No. 1 (beating out, among others, Roy Harris, William Schuman, Morton Gould and most notably, Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait). From 1956-1960 he served as president of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors. He served as professor of music at Central Washington State College from 1968-1975. After ending his tenure at Central Washington, Creston moved to San Diego, where he died on August 24th, 1985.

Creston's works for saxophone hold an important place in the repertoire. His Sonata for Alto Saxophone (op. 19, 1939) is one of the foundational works of the repertoire, as well as being one of the first important works for saxophone by an American composer. His other works for saxophone include the Suite (op. 6, 1935), Rapsodie (op 108, 1976) and Suite for Saxophone Quartet (op. 111, 1979). His Concerto for Alto Saxophone (op. 26,1941) has also remained a cornerstone of the wind ensemble concerto repertoire as well.