Gail Kubik

American composer

Gail Kubik

in memory of Gail Kubik, American composer who lived in Venasque, 1963-1983

Gail Thompson Kubik (September 5, 1914, South Coffeyville, Oklahoma – July 20, 1984, Covina, California) was an American composer, music director, violinist, and teacher.[1]

## Early life and education

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Kubik was born the second of three sons to Henry and Evalyn O. Kubik, a singer who had studied with Schumann-Heink.[2] In the 1930s his mother and her sons formed the Kubik Ensemble (Gail on violin, Howard on piano, and Henry Jr. on cello) and toured the midwest. All three brothers studied at the Eastman School of Music, where Gail composition with Howard Hanson and violin with Samuel Belov and Scott Willits.[3][4][5] Gail then received his master's degree in music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he studied with Leo Sowerby. He studied one year towards a doctorate in music at Harvard University where he studied with Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger.[4]

He taught violin and composition at Monmouth College (where his brother taught cello) and composition and music history at Dakota Wesleyan University,[6] Columbia University Teachers College. Among his students included Gordon Binkerd and Marjorie Merryman.[6][7]

## Career

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In 1940 he joined NBC Radio in New York as staff composer. By the end of 1940 he was in Hollywood, where the army had recruited him (with rank of Corporal) to be music director for the Motion Picture Bureau at the Office of War Information. During World War II, he composed and conducted the music scores of many of the OWI's films. In 1944 his work for the OWI's Overseas Film Unit took him to England in 1944.[8]

He was an editor for Mercury Music Corporation, editing their American Music for Piano series.[9]

In 1943, he was a board member of the Los Angeles-based Musicians' Congress Committee (along with Aaron Copland, Darius Milhaud, Lena Horne, William Grant Still and other musical luminaries). This committee was formed and sponsored by Max Silver with a goal of promoting American art music during the war, and was suspected of being a Communist front.[10][11]

In 1945 Kubik had successfully sued the membership organization American Composers' Alliance for licensing his music for profit without his consent. In 1948 he was an artist in residence at Yaddo along with Patricia Highsmith, Marc Brandel, Bob White, Clifford Wright, Irene Orgel, Chester Himes, Vivien MacLeod, Harold Shapero, Stanley Levine, and Flannery O'Connor.[12]

He won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Symphony Concertante.[1]

Between his Pulitzer Prize, and the success of his score for UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing, his reputation was such that in 1953 he signed a guaranteed publishing contract with ASCAP's Chappell Music. The musical trades positioned this deal as part of an ongoing competition between ASCAP and BMI for the prestige of signing contracts with respected composers.[13]

From 1963 to 1983 he lived in Venasque, France, where he purchased and renovated several homes. One of these homes is now owned by Darius Brubeck.[14] From 1970 until his death, he was composer-in-residence at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[15] He was on the national advisory board for the University of Missouri Kansas City's Institute for Studies in American Music founded in 1967.[16] He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1944 and 1965,[17] and was a permanent Fellow at MacDowell.[18] He was one of the composers interviewed for Irwin Bazelon's book Knowing the Score: Notes on Film Music.[19]

He was the dedicatee of Ingolf Dahl's 1944 Music for Brass Instruments.[20] The work's final fugue movement's second theme is a notational representation of Kubik's army serial number 32824096.[21]

Kubik was married and divorced four times.[5]

## Works

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* American Caprice for piano and orchestra (1933 ; orch. 1936)
* Piano Trio (1934)
* Violin Concerto, Op. 4 (1934/36, dedicated to Jascha Heifetz)
* Danse for piano (1939), winner of 2nd prize in the Kansas state music club piano composition contest.[22]
* Violin Concerto No. 2 (1940/41, dedicated to Ruggiero Ricci)
* Suite for 3 recorders (1941)
* Sonatina for Piano (dedicated to Walter Piston) (1941)
* Sonatina for Violin (1943)[23]
* Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major (1946)
* Sonata for piano (1947), first recorded by Jacob Maxin in Maxin's recorded debut.[24]
* Nocturne for flute and piano (1947)[25]
* Little Suite for flute and two clarinets (1948)[25]
* Celebrations And Epilogue, 10 short pieces for piano (1938–50)
* Symphony Concertante for piano, viola, trumpet and orchestra (1952)
* Symphony No. 2 in F major (1954-6)
* Symphony No. 3 (1956)
* Divertimento No. 1 for thirteen players (1959)
* Divertimento No. 2 for eight players (1959)
* Sonatina for clarinet and piano (dedicated to Nadia Boulanger) (1959)
* String Quartet (1960)
* In Praise of Johnny Appleseed (for bass, chorus, and orchestra), based on the Vachel Lindsay poem, entered into the 1942 National Federation of Music Clubs' choral composition contest. (Kettering won this contest with a work based on a Vachel Lindsay Johnny Appleseed poem)[26]
* Symphony for 2 pianos (reworked from Symphony No. 1) (1949–79)
* Music for Cleveland, for piano, premiered July 25, 1968 by Jacob Maxin[27]
* Prayer and Toccata for 2 pianos and organ (1969–79)

### Opera

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* Boston Baked Beans (1952)
* A Mirror for the Sky (a folk opera, first performed 1957)

### Film scores

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* Men and Ships (1940)
* Colleges at War (1942)
* Menpower (1942)
* Paratroops (1942)
* The World at War (1942)[28]
* Dover (1942, aka Dover Front Line)
* Earthquakers (1943)
* Air Pattern-Pacific (1944)
* The Memphis Belle (1944)
* Thunderbolt! (1947)
* C-Man (1949), including the song Do It Now, written with Larry Neill.[29]
* Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950 cartoon based on a story by Dr. Seuss); Kubik composed also a longer version which is sometimes performed as a narrated concert piece with Dr. Seuss's text
* The Miner's Daughter (1950)
* Two Gals and a Guy (1951, aka Baby and Me) (incidental music, also served as musical director)
* The Desperate Hours (1955). Additional music by Daniele Amfitheatrof (uncredited)
* I Thank a Fool (1962) This score was later replaced by Ron Goodwin
* Music for Bells

## References

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1. ^ a b "BMOP: Music of American Composer Gail Kubik". New Music Buff. 2022-02-17. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
2. ^ "Famed Musical Family Gives Assembly Next Wednesday. Kubik Ensemble of Four Members Widely Heralded". The Southwest Standard. October 12, 1934. p. 7.
3. ^ Judiciary, United States Congress House Committee on the (1966). Copyright Law Revision: Hearings Before Subcommittee No. 3 of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Eighty-ninth Congress, First Session. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 303.
4. ^ a b Drake, Charles Clayton (1942). Who's Who in Coffeyville, Kansas, and Vicinity. Coffeyville, KS: Coffeyville Journal Press.
5. ^ a b "Gail Thompson Kubik | Kennedy Center". The Kennedy Center. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
6. ^ a b Villamil, Victoria Etnier (1993). A Singer's Guide to the American Art Song, 1870-1980. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 50\. ISBN 978-0-8108-2774-5.
7. ^ Libraries, Boston Area Music (1983). The Boston Composers Project: A Bibliography of Contemporary Music. MIT Press. p. 348\. ISBN 978-0-262-02198-2.
8. ^ Kubik, Gail T. (1946). "Composing for Government Films". Modern Music. 23 (3): 189–192.189-192&rft.date=1946&rft.aulast=Kubik&rft.aufirst=Gail+T.&rft_id=https://cinescores.dudaone.com/composing-for-government-films&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Gail+Kubik" class="Z3988">
9. ^ Slomski, Monica J. (1994-11-21). Paul Creston: A Bio-Bibliography. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 141\. ISBN 978-0-313-03643-9.
10. ^ Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications (PDF) (2nd ed.). Washington DC: Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives. December 1, 1961. p. 221.
11. ^ Activities, Estados Unidos Congress House Committee on Un-American (1956). Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-fourth Congress, Second Session. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 3827.
12. ^ Highsmith, Patricia (2021-09-27). "A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Woman". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
13. ^ Horowitz, I.S. (April 25, 1953). "ASCAP Classical Battle - Guarantees Would Halt BMI Snithces". The Billboard: 1.
14. ^ "Chez Brubeck". Chez Brubeck. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
15. ^ Delta Omicron Archived January 27, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
16. ^ "TimesMachine: Sunday June 27, 1971 - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
17. ^ "Gail T. Kubik – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation…". Retrieved 2024-11-11.
18. ^ "TimesMachine: Wednesday July 25, 1984 - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
19. ^ Marks, Martin Miller (1997). Music and the Silent Film: Contexts and Case Studies, 1895-1924. Oxford University Press. p. 235\. ISBN 978-0-19-506891-7.
20. ^ Dahl, Ingolf (1949). Music for Brass Instruments. Alfred Music. ISBN 978-1-4574-9615-8.
21. ^ Cohen, Paul (2000). Classic American Brass (CD liner notes). Summit Records. Summit 275.
22. ^ Snoddy, Abbie L (March–April 1939). "Kansas Announces Winners in Composers' Contest". Music Clubs Magazine. XVIII (4). National Federation of Music Clubs: 10.
23. ^ Shepherd, Arthur (1927). Triptych: for high voice and string quartet. Society for the Publication of American Music. p. 30.
24. ^ Gail Kubik, Jacob Maxin - Sonata For Piano / Celebrations And Epilogue, 1959, retrieved 2025-01-19
25. ^ a b Toff, Nancy (1996). The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers. Oxford University Press. p. 271\. ISBN 978-0-19-510502-5.
26. ^ "Award to Miss Kettering with Bornschein in Contest" (PDF). The Diapason. 34 (3): 12. February 1, 1943. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 31, 2022. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
27. ^ Kirby, Fred (August 10, 1968). "Classical Notes". Billboard. p. 38.
28. ^ "TimesMachine: Friday September 4, 1942 - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-11-11.
29. ^ Gevinson, Alan (1997). Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960. University of California Press. p. 147\. ISBN 978-0-520-20964-0.

## External links

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* Gail Kubik at IMDb
* Kubik papers at Kansas State University Archived 2007-11-09 at the Wayback Machine
* NY Times obituary

* v
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Pulitzer Prize for Music (1951–1960)

* Douglas Moore ('51): Giants in the Earth
* Gail Kubik ('52): Symphony Concertante
* n.a. ('53)
* Quincy Porter ('54): Concerto Concertante
* Gian Carlo Menotti ('55): The Saint of Bleecker Street
* Ernst Toch ('56): Symphony No. 3
* Norman Dello Joio ('57): Meditations on Ecclesiastes
* Samuel Barber ('58): Vanessa
* John La Montaine ('59): Piano Concerto No. 1
* Elliott Carter ('60): String Quartet No. 2

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