Biography for
Virgil Thomson

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One of the driving forces, both as critic and musician, of 20th century American music, Thomson studied music at both Harvard University and elsewhere in the Boston area before moving to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger in 1921. After spending a short time in his native land, he returned to Paris and remained there until 1940, working with many of the major composers, writers, and artists of the period, most significantly Gertrude Stein, with whom he wrote the opera "Four Saints in Three Acts" (1927-28). Upon returning to the US, Thomson became the music critic for the NY Herald-Tribune, earning himself a Pulitzer Prize in Music for his score for the film Louisiana Story (1948). Hated by many in the music world for his acerbic criticism, Thomson nevertheless won numerous accolades, including the Legion d'honneur (1947) and the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement (1983).

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Always ready to demolish popular classical music "idols," Thomson was famous for his withering criticisms of conductor Arturo Toscanini, pianist Vladimir Horowitz, violinist Jascha Heifetz, and composer George Gershwin, whose opera "Porgy and Bess" he termed "fake folklore." He earned the undying enmity of Toscanini for his reviews.

Was one of the famous artistic habitues who resided at New York's legendary Chelsea Hotel, where documentary-film pioneer Robert Flaherty - whose Louisiana Story (1948) Thomson scored - also kept an office.

Largely because he was himself a composer, Thomson took conductor Arturo Toscanini severely to task for supposedly not devoting enough attention to twentieth century music.

He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1988 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, DC.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives." Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 830-832. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.

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