Ewen, David

Ewen, David, Polish-born American writer on music; b. Lemberg, Nov. 26, 1907; d. Miami Beach, Dec. 28, 1985. He was taken to the U.S. in 1912 and pursued his training in N.Y. at City Coll. and Columbia Univ.; also studied theory with Max Persin. He was music ed. of Reflex Magazine (1928–29), The American Hebrew (1935), and Cue (1937–38), and then was active with the publ. firm of Allen, Towne, and Heath (1946–9). In 1965 he joined the faculty of the Univ. of Miami, which awarded him an honorary D.Mus. in 1974. In 1985 he received the ASCAP Award for Lifetime Achievement in Music. Ewen publ. more than 80 books during a career of some 50 years, including The Book of Modern Composers (1942; 3rd ed., 1961, as The New Book of Modern Composers), Encyclopedia of the Opera (1955; 2nd ed., rev., 1971 as New Encyclopedia of the Opera), Panorama of American Popular Music (1957), Complete Book of the American Musical Theater (1958; 3rd ed., rev, 1976 as New Complete Book of the American Musical Theater), Encyclopedia of Concert Music (1959), The Story of America’s Musical Theater (1961; 2nd ed., rev, 1968), Popular American Composers: From Revolutionary Times to the Present (1962; suppl., 1972), The Complete Book of Classical Music (1963), The Life and Death of Tin Pan Alley (1964), American Popular Songs: From the Revolutionary War to the Present (1966), Great Composers: 1300–1900 (1966), Composers Since 1900 (1969; suppl., 1981), Great Men of American Popular Song (1970; 2nd ed., rev, 1972), Mainstreams of Music (4 vols., 1972–75), All the Years of American Popular Music (1977), Musicians Since 1900 (1978), and American Composers: A Biographical Dictionary (1982).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire