Bassett, Leslie (Raymond)

Bassett, Leslie (Raymond), distinguished American composer and teacher; b. Hanford, Calif., Jan. 22, 1923. He received training in piano. He played the trombone in jazz combos, and also was a trombonist during his military service, playing in the 13 th Armored Division Band. He then enrolled in Fresno (Calif.) State Coll. (B.A., 1947), and later studied composition with Finney at the Univ. of Mich. (M.M., 1949; D.M., 1956). He also took private lessons with Honegger and Boulanger in Paris in 1950. In 1952 he was appointed to the faculty of the Univ. of Mich., where he was made a prof. in 1965 and was chairman of the composition dept. (1970–85). In 1977 he became the Albert A. Stanley Distinguished Univ. prof. of Music there, retiring in 1992. He held the American Prix de Rome (1961–63), and received the National Inst. of Arts and Letters Award in 1964. In 1966 he received the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Variations for Orch. He held a Guggenheim fellowship in 1973–74 and again in 1980–81. In 1981 he became a member of the American Academy and Inst. of Arts and Letters. In 1988 he held a Rockefeller Foundation grant for study at its Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy. In his music, Bassett pursues the ideal of structural logic within the judicial limits of the modern school of composition, with some serial elements discernible in his use of thematic rhythms and motivic periodicity.