Howard Hanson - Legacy and Honors

Legacy and Honors

• Hanson was an initiate of two chapters of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity: the Iota Chapter at Northwestern University in 1916, and the Alpha Nu Chapter at Eastman in 1928. He was recognized as a national honorary member in 1930, and presented with the Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award at the national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1954.
• After he composed the Hymn of the Pioneers to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first Swedish settlement in Delaware, Hanson was selected as a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy in 1938.
• In 1944, Hanson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 4, subtitled Requiem.
• In 1945, he became the first recipient of the Ditson Conductor's Award for his commitment to American music.
• In 1946, Hanson was awarded the George Foster Peabody Award "for outstanding entertainment programming" for a series he presented on the Rochester, New York radio station WHAM in 1945.
• In 1953, Hanson helped to establish the Edward B. Benjamin Prize "for calming and uplifting music" written by Eastman students. Each submitted score was read by Hanson and the Eastman Orchestra. Winners of the Benjamin Prize appeared on Hanson's recording Music for Quiet Listening.
• In 1960, Hanson published Harmonic Materials of Modern Music: Resources of the Tempered Scale, a book that would lay the foundation for musical set theory. Among the many notions considered was what Hanson called the isomeric relationship, now usually termed Z-relationship.
• Hanson was on the Board of Directors of the Music Educators National Conference from 1960 to 1964.
• Hanson's Song of Democracy, on a Walt Whitman text, was performed at the inaugural concert for incoming U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1969. Hanson proudly noted this was the first inaugural concert to feature only American music.
• In recognition of Hanson's achievements, the Eastman Kodak company donated $100,000 worth of stock to the Eastman School of Music in 1976. Hanson stipulated that the gift be used to fund the Institute of American Music.
• Hanson was a Distinguished Nebraskans Award Recipient in 1976.