“Crawford Gates, longtime music director for the Rockford Symphony Orchestra and [Wisconsin’s] Beloit Janesville Symphony Orchestra and professor emeritus at Beloit College, died at the age of 96 … Saturday in Salt Lake City,” writes Victor Yehling in Tuesday’s (6/12) Northern Public Radio (Rockford, Illinois). “Gates joined the Beloit College faculty as professor of music and artist in residence in 1966—the same year he began a 33-year career with the Beloit Janesville Symphony. He also directed the Quincy [Illinois] Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1970. Four years later, he became the second music director for the Rockford Symphony Orchestra and set about filling its seats with professional musicians from the Rockford area. A prolific composer … Gates included his works in the RSO repertoire from time to time…. His composition ‘Ballad of the Prairie State,’ created for the U.S. Bicentennial, was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a concert at the Rockford MetroCentre in 1982…. Following his service in the Navy during World War II, Gates earned a bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University, a master’s degree at Brigham Young University and a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music. He taught at BYU before taking up his post at Beloit College.”
Posted June 14, 2018
