Stephen Douglas Burton
Stephen Douglas Burton was born in California in 1943 and studied with Mazie Lucas, a student of Josef Hoffman, Morris Browda, a graduate of the Vienna Conservatory, and at the Oberlin and Peabody conservatories in America, and at the Mozarteum in Austria with Hans Werner Henze. Mr. Burton’s works have been commissioned and performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Orch. (SFB), the Buffalo Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, the National Orchestra of France, the Israel Philharmonic, the National Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, Wolf Trap, ArtPark, the American Dance Festival, and others, as well as by many conductors, including Sir Georg Solti, Antal Dorati, Christopher Keene, Mstislav Rostropovich, Hugh Wolff, Rudolph Alberth, and Hans Werner Henze. Stephen Douglas Burton debuted as a composer at the age of 19 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in his "Ode to a Nightingale."
Commissioned Works
Ariel, Symphony No. 2 with the Syracuse Symphony under the direction of Christopher Keene, Executive Director of the New York City Opera, was recorded immediately after its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall and is available for streaming or on CD by BRIDGE RECORDS along with other works on Amazon under his full name (Stephen Douglas Burton). It was originally commissioned by Antal Dorati and the National Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Burton conducted the Louisville Orchestra for the recording of his Songs of the Tulpehocken, Symphony No. 3, with Met tenor Kenneth Riegel who commissioned the work (recording Klassic Haus Restorations) Songs was subsequently performed and broadcast in Brussels and London.
Mr. Burton's Fanfare for Peace, commissioned by the International Committee for the Bicentennial of the Treaty of Paris, was performed in 1983 by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Nation’s Capital before 60,000 people. The work was subsequently performed in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, for British-American Day, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, and at the Diplomatic Gates at Grosvenor Square (a gift from the National Committee for the Bicentennial of the Treaty of Paris to the UK), with Princess Alexandra in attendance.
His symphonic cantata (Symphony No. 6) I Have a Dream was lauded by publications including the Washington Times as "a triumph." It was commissioned for the centennial of the FMMC of Washington, DC.
On the Stage
Mr. Burton was, at the age of 19, Music Director of the Munich Kammerspiele in "Der Frieden." In 1988 he was commissioned to write the music for the Folger Theatre's production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, starring Kelly MacGillis and Tony Award-winner Brian Bedford.
With Hans Werner Henze, he worked at the Hessian State Opera in Kassel, Germany, the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, and the Rome Opera. Burton appears on "Music Is" as "the composer," a TV series produced by PBS.
He stage-directed his and Christopher Keene's opera "The Duchess of Malfi" at ArtPark in Lewiston, NY in 1979. National Opera Institute commission.
A reading of his musical "Hallelujah" was given in New York for Broadway producers Barr & Woodward in 1983 with Randolph Mauldin, conductor of Zorba, Evita, and Sweeney Todd.
Film Work
Also with Mr. Henze, Burton composed music for Alan Resnais' film Muriel and assisted Henze on the PBS production of Rachael. With Gillian Anderson of the Library of Congress, Mr. Burton has restored the original orchestral film scores of Ben Hur (1926), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), and Cecil B. DeMille's biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1923), which reopened the restored Grauman's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on December 4, 1998, exactly 75 years after its premiere there. Also with Ms. Anderson, he restored the score to Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s Robin Hood (1922).
Orchestration
Burton's book Orchestration (Prentice Hall, 1982) was adopted at over 100 colleges and universities.
His Memoir, "Towards an Epic American Music," was privately published in 2016.
Mr. Burton has also orchestrated for the Washington Ballet. His orchestrations for the Joffrey Ballet include L'Air d'Esprit, which was in its repertoire for over ten years, and Postcards, which was the last ballet Robert Joffrey choreographed before his death in 1988.
In 1986, Burton was called on to orchestrate with only one week before the premiere, a major new musical theatre work. The only problem—the work had not yet been orchestrated! Burton was asked to take on the task and called in his friends from Broadway, Michael Gibson (whose credits include My One and Only, Steel Pier, Grease) and Tony Award-winner William David Brohn (Miss Saigon, Ragtime, Wicked, and Mary Poppins). They made the deadline.
Grants
In addition to his Guggenheim Fellowship, Mr. Burton has received the Grand Prize of the National Federation of Music Clubs in 1969, five NEA grants, and grants from the National Opera Institute, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), and the Myers, Kiplinger, Dreyfus, and Coolidge foundations. He composed the silver anniversary commission for the Richmond Symphony, conducted by Jacques Houtmann. He received the first prize ever awarded a composer by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which included a premiere by the Virginia Symphony under Winston-Dan Vogel. His music has been performed at the National Gallery of Art's American Music Festival at the Phillips Gallery, and at the Inter-American Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, where he also conducted.
Service to the Arts
Stephen Douglas Burton has served on the American Council of Germany under the late John J. McCloy, on ASCAP and American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL) panels for grants to American orchestras and other ASOL panels, the ASCAP Young Composer Awards Panel, Chamber Music America's C. Michael Paul/Exxon and Martha Baird Rockefeller panels, the Atlantic-Richfield Residency Grant Panels, and two four-year terms on the Virginia Commission for the Arts' Advisory Grants Panel for Northern Virginia.
Teaching at George Mason University
Burton taught as an endowed Heritage Chair in Music at GMU from 1973, where he also served as Vice President for Academic Affairs. For five years, he served as Director of its renowned International Arts Festival. In keeping with George Mason University's mission to make the arts an integral part of the lives of all its students, Mr. Burton opened his courses in Music in Motion Pictures, American Musical Theater, and The Impact of the Arts on Civilization to majors and non-majors alike. He retired from the University in 2006.