Pulitzer Prize winner Howard Hanson (1896-1981), a major American composer and educator, founded the annual Festival of American Music and directed the Eastman School of Music for 40 years.

Howard Hanson was born in October 1896 in Wahoo, Nebraska. He graduated from the Luther Academy and College in Nebraska in 1912, then studied under Percy Goetschius at the Institute of Musical Arts (later the Juilliard School) in New York City and under Arne Oldberg at Northwestern University in Evanston, IIIinois. In 1916 Hanson became an instructor at the College of the Pacific in California. His teaching and administrative talents soon became evident, and in 1919 he was made dean of the College of Music at the age of 23.

Hanson received an American Prix de Rome in 1921 and spent the next two years in Rome. His most important compositions in this period were the Nordic Symphony and The Song of Beowulf for chorus and...