James
Furman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and at the age of six began piano
studies with his aunt, Permelia Hansbrough. At the age of sixteen
he won first place with a composition submitted to the Louisville Philharmonic
Society's Young Artist Competition which was performed with the Louisville
Symphony Orchestra.
He received his Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music in Theory-Composition degrees from the University of Louisville. Further graduate study was pursued at Brandeis and Harvard Universities where he completed the academic requirements for the Ph.D. His teachers in composition included Irving Fine, Arthur Berger, George Perle, Harold Shapero and Claude Almand.
Among the many awards and honors which he has received are: the Omicron Delta Kappa Award as the top ranking music student of his graduating class at the University of Louisville, first place in the Brookline Library Composition Competition and two National Federation of Music Clubs awards for distinguished service to American music.
During the 60's Furman was musical director-arranger-pianist for the Army World Touring "Rolling Along Show." His New York debut was made in Town Hall as a conductor. He was also choral director for both the British Broadcasting Company documentary film on the life of Charles Ives, and the Leonard Bernstein American Symphony Orchestra Ives Centennial Concert held at the Danbury State Fairgrounds in Danbury, CT on July 4, 1974.
Furman is represented in nineteen literary sources. Included among these is an in-depth study of his selected choral music in a doctoral dissertation by Effie Gardner (Michigan State University). He is widely published in a variety of mediums which include orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo, mixed media and Afro-American gospel music. He is currently engaged in completing a book on "The History and Performance Practice of Afro-American Gospel Music." He is Professor of Music at Western Connecticut State College.
- taken from Program Notes
by Glen Wegge, Tuesday, April 20, 1982 "Music of James Furman, Composer"
Ives Concert Hall, Danbury, CT A world premiere of several
of James' instrumental compositions. Notice there is no date of birth at
the beginning of the biography.
Mr. Furman had a thing about his age; he never revealed it.
Furman, James B. College professor/Composer (b. 23 January 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky). He studied piano as a child. During his high-school years he won first place in the Louisville (Kentucky) Philharmonic Society's Young Artist Contest (1953), which allowed him to appear as a soloist with the Louisville Symphony. He obtained his musical education in the public schools of Louisville, at the University of Louisville (B. Mus. Ed., 1958: M. Mus., 1965), at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts (1962-64), and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (summer 1966). His teachers in composition included George Perle, Claude Almand, Irving Fine, Arthur Berger, and Harold Shapero. His teaching career included tenures in the public schools of Louisville (1958-59) and Mamaroneck, New York (1964-65), and at Western Connecticut State college in Danbury (1965- ). His compositions fall primarily into the categories of choral works, songs, and chamber music. Best-known of his works are the symphonic oratorio I Have a Dream (1971), the trio Variants (1963), the choral suite Four Little Foxes (1965), and Declaration of Independence for orchestra and narrator (1977). He was also active as a church organist and choral director.
copied from Eileen Southern’s Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).