Fox, Frederick A.
Biography
Born: January 17, 1931
Died: August 24, 2011
Country: Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.
Studies: Wayne State University (B.M.1953), Indiana University (M.M.1957, D.M.A.1959)
Teachers: B. Heiden, Ross Lee Finney, Ruth Wylie
Usually when musicians and composers look back on their careers and lives, they often point out that it’s been all about “the music.” And, holding true to form, former Jacobs School of Music professor of music, Frederick A. Fox, concurs. “Yes, that’s correct,” he said. “At the core, it’s always been the music.”
For Fox, the “music” started in junior high school when he began playing the saxophone. By his late teens and early 20s, it began to gain strength when he toured the Midwest as part of big band jazz ensembles, playing the instrument he always had, the tenor sax. The music began to take on increasing importance when he began to write small interludes and introductory pieces to the big band numbers. It was only then he realized he had found his calling in life—a composer of music.
Now 80 years of age, Professor Fox retired from Indiana University and the Jacobs School of Music in April 1997. He had served I.U. and the music school as professor of composition for 23 years, 13 of which were as chairman of the composition department. A notable achievement of his was the founding of the I.U. New Music Ensemble in 1975, which today, 35 years later, continues to thrive. But Fox’s arrival at the School of Music (as it was then called) in 1974 was actually a homecoming of sorts, for he had attended and graduated from the institution in the 1950s, receiving, in music composition, both his M.Mus. (1957) and D.Mus. (1959) degrees.[1] More here...
Works for Percussion
Gaber ! - Percussion Sextet
Quartet (Fox) - Percussion Quartet
References