Return of Ulysses

With eleven cash prizes for musical composition to his credit, e.g., two Rosenwald fellowships, two fellowships at the American Academy in Rome. 37-year-old Negro Composer Ulysses Kay is among the most steadily rewarded of contemporary U.S. composers. Last week he came in for a special honor: he was invited back to his native Tucson, Ariz. (pop. 48,774) to conduct the Tucson Symphony in his own symphonic score, Of New Horizons.

Music-minded Tucson, which turned out 2,400 strong, liked what it heard. Composer Kay is modern, as befits a onetime student of Composer Paul Hindesmith -but modern in thoroughly listenable fashion, as befits a man who has played saxophone and piccolo in a Navy band and has written a successful film score (for The Quiet One). Of New Horizons started and ended with plenty of brass, but in the middle it made appealing use of melodic interweavings in the strings. And though Composer Kay's melody kept getting interrupted by conflicting ideas, it also kept coming back. When the nine-minute work was over, the crowd gave the home-town composer the biggest hand of the evening.

The son of an Arizona barber. Ulysses Kay left Tucson in 1938 with a degree from the University of Arizona and a strong urge toward music and composition. There was time for an M.A. at Rochester's Eastman School and advanced study at Tanglewood and Yale before Pearl Harbor. Then came the Navy and the hitch in the band. Finally, along with more study at Columbia on the G.I. Bill, came the succession of prizes and (since last year) a full-time job as editorial adviser in the Manhattan offices of Broadcast Music. Inc. (B.M.I.). His trip to Tucson was his first visit in more than 15 years.

Meanwhile, music in Tucson has been moving right along. Ulysses Kay's homecoming was only part of a season-long celebration of the Tucson Symphony's 25th anniversary. Though the orchestra's budget is only $21,000 a year and most of its members hold other jobs as well, the orchestra is an 85-piece one this year, and will give ten concerts in all.

Part of Tucson's music boom traces to the presence of the University of Arizona, with its active interest in music. Another big influence is the orchestra's Budapest-born conductor, Frederic Balazs, 35, who was engaged two seasons ago. Conductor Balazs has organized an exchange concert with Phoenix, children's concerts and a new civic chorus. He has already staged two large-scale choral works. Liszt's monumental Christus and Haydn's Creation. Best of all, Balazs sees to it that there is a modern American composition, e.g., Ulysses Kay's Horizons, on every program.

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