(1908 – 1989)
was a music professor, biographer, and composer of American music. Halsey Stevens was born in Scott, New York, and educated at Syracuse University and the University of California, Berkeley. He studied with William Berwald at Syracuse and the composer Ernest Bloch at Berkeley.
Composed between 1953 and 1956, Halsey Stevens's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano was premiered at the Hartt School in Hartford Connecticut by Theodor Gresh (trumpet) and Geraldine Douglass (piano).
One of the great standards of the modern trumpet repertoire. In three movements: Allegro Moderato, Adagio Tenero, and Allegro.
The work is a lively showpiece for the trumpet, somewhat in the style of Bartók and Copland.
