Early Life
Downes was born in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Olin Downes. He was educated at Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music and received a Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University in 1958. Downes served in the Army during World War II. During the war he worked for a time for Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., preparing briefing books for the Office of Strategic Services.
Read more about this topic: Edward Downes (American Musicologist)
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Parenting is the one area of my life where I can feel incompetent, out of control and like a total failure all of the time.”
—Attorney Father. As quoted in Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher, ch. 4 (1994)