John Vincent (composer)

Vincent was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music under Frederick Converse and George Chadwick graduating with a diploma in 1927.He was able to study original manuscripts of all classical composers at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (French National Library).Made field recordings for Library of Congress with Alan Lomax, using Fairchild machine to preserve notables of the old South.Vincent was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University from 1937 to 1945 and Schoenberg's successor as professor of composition at UCLA, a position he held from 1946 to 1969.He also conducted orchestras throughout the US, and all South American countries sponsored by U.S.-State Dept, and he was a director of the Rustic Canyon art-colony Huntington Hartford Foundation from 1952 to 1965.