Beglarian, Grant

Beglarian, Grant, Georgian-born American arts administrator and composer of Armenian descent, fa-ther of Eve Beglarian; b. Tiflis, Dec. 1, 1927. He went to Teheran in 1934, and then to the U.S. in 1947, becoming a naturalized American citizen in 1954. After attending Boston Univ. (1947), he studied composition with Finney at the Univ. of Mich. (B.M., 1950; M.M., 1952; D.M.A., 1958) and with Copland at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood (summer 1959). He was president of Music- Book Associates (1954–65) and director of the Contemporary Music Project of the Ford Foundation (1961–69). After serving as dean of the School of Performing Arts at the Univ. of Southern Calif, in Los Angeles (1969–82), he was president of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts in Miami (1982–91). Since then, he has served as a consultant to cultural and educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad, most notably the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and the American Academy of Art in Giverny, France. He joined the board of the Copland Heritage Assn. in 1996 and chaired its Copland Soc. for the restoration and use of Copland’s home for residencies by composers and as a center for promoting the study and performance of works by American composers. In 1958 he won the George Gershwin Award, in 1959 and 1968 he received Ford Foundation Composer awards, and in 1961, 1963, and 1990 he was a resident at the MacDowell Colony.