Jerome William Rosen, founding member of the Department of Music at the University of California, Davis, died peacefully in Davis on June 20 after a long illness. He was a member of the faculty of the University of California between his appointment in 1952 and his retirement in 1988 and remained active in its affairs for two further decades. Born in Boston, he moved with his family to Pittsburgh that same year. He served in the United States Army in California. Prior to entering the service, he met Sylvia Terrell in Las Cruces, New Mexico; they were married in 1944.

Rosen attended New Mexico State College and UCLA, and after the War took the BA degree in music from UC Berkeley in 1947. In 1949 he completed the MA in music composition at Berkeley, where he was a student of Charles Cushing, William Denny, and Roger Sessions; there too he first encountered the dominant influence on his emerging profession, Darius Milhaud, then teaching at Mills College. As winner of the George Ladd Prix de Paris, Rosen was able to study with Milhaud in Paris, 1949–50, also at that time taking lessons at the Paris Conservatoire from the leading clarinet virtuoso of the era, Ulysse Delécluse. Rosen’s friendship with Milhaud led to a family sabbatical year spent in the composer’s apartment near the Place Pigalle in Paris (1958–59), and to the commissioning of Milhaud’s Symphony No. 12 “Rurale,” op. 390, for the opening of Freeborn Hall in 1962.

Rosen was appointed Instructor in Music beginning in the 1952–53 academic year, as the College of Letters and Science was launched. In short succession he redefined the University Chorus and the Concert Band, leading both, established the Noon Concert and Chamber Music programs, and laid the foundation for the subsequent establishment of the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra. It fell to Rosen as director of bands (ROTC band, concert band, and California Aggie Marching Band), in his first years, to secure funding for the replacement of the 1938 band uniforms, hand-me-downs from Berkeley. “It reflects no credit on our school,” he wrote, “to send out a shoddy-looking band.” Though there was no enrollment in the academic curriculum presented in the first catalogue, Rosen taught beginning music theory informally once a week, keeping in practice, he said, until the students should arrive. He went on to assemble the prestigious faculty of the nascent Department of Music, formally established in 1958, and helped design and build the Music Building in the arts quadrangle. Later he led the campus to claim a presence in synthesized sound and computer-aided composition and served as first director of the Electronic Music Studio, helped write the graduate degrees in music, and was of significant counsel in the planning for what became the Mondavi Center for the Arts. He was an important solo clarinetist and saxophonist, appearing in countless regional recitals and new music programs. He was soloist in the performance of his Clarinet Concerto with the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra (1976) and, frequently, with the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra.

Steve Law, Jerome Rosen, Scott Rodrick, and Joel Barnett in the electronic music studio.

As a composer, Rosen left some 60 works of solo and chamber music, often including clarinet or saxophone, as well as works for voice and those of symphonic and operatic scope. His large-scale works for saxophone, including a Concerto of 1957 and a Quintet for Saxophone and Strings, 1974, attracted considerable attention, especially in Europe. His two operas, Calisto and Melibea, to a libretto by Edwin Honig (1979), and Emperor Norton of the USA, to a libretto by James Schevill (1999), were produced in the Main Theatre at UC Davis. His major song cycle to a volume by the UC Davis poet Karl Shapiro, White-Haired Lover, was premiered in 1979; additionally he set poetry of Celeste Turner Wright, including Campus Doorways, composed for the inauguration of what is now the Pavilion of the Activities & Recreation Center (ARC), 1978; this was played again for the dedication of Celeste Turner Wright Hall in 1997. For the 75th anniversary of the campus in 1984, Rosen composed the University Fanfare that continues to be heard at the start of each commencement ceremony. His most recent published work is entitled Three Birthday Duets, miniatures composed for three Sacramento-area clarinetists (1999). Rosen’s music is published by Lawson-Gould, American Composers Alliance, Boosey & Hawkes, Laureate Music Press, and Subito Music Corporation; his String Quartet No. 1 (1947) was recorded by the New Music String Quartet and released on the CBS Epic label in 1957.

With Richard Swift, Larry Austin, George Perle, and others, Rosen succeeded in making Davis a recognized destination for concerts of new music and long residencies by such central 20th-century figures as Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, and David Tudor. He was determined that his campus would be a congenial locus for the study of music composition at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His undergraduate classes were known especially for his insistence, in the days before computerized notation, on meticulous music calligraphy with pen and India ink; his own autograph scores are triumphs of the craft. Among his early composition students was the Sacramento composer and percussionist Stanley Lunetta; among his last, Laurie San Martin, one of his successors on the Davis faculty.

Jerome Rosen, University Librarian Richard Blanchard, Chancellor Emil Mrak, and Herman Phaff study Darius Milhaud's Twelfth Symphony score for the inauguration of Freeborn Hall, 1962.

In addition to the Prix de Paris, Rosen was recognized with grants from the Fromm Music Foundation (1953, 1954, 1960), a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958, and a residency at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, in 1982. He was honored on his 60th birthday in 1981 with a Festschrift, Salve Hieronymus! A Birthday Offering for Jerome Rosen, of compositions and essays by his colleagues and admirers. His reflections on his long career are preserved in a video oral history recorded in 1994 for the UC Davis Emeriti Association. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Department of Music in 1998, he took the lead in writing its memoir, Pastyme with Good Companye (2002). His works were most recently featured at the department’s Clarinet Festival (January 2011) in the Mondavi Center, and on several performances by the Empyrean Ensemble.

To the public Rosen was the face of UC Davis Music for a half century, present at nearly every concert, often as not participating in it. To his colleagues past and present he was a beloved mentor and powerful intellectual force. He had built wisely, in the words of an associate, creating a place “to work with enjoyment and fulfillment, vigorously together in good harmony.” Its pillars were a synthesis of music composition, performance, and scholarship; a collegiality to be nourished daily; and an innate commitment to the students, the concert-going public, and the people of California.

Rosen is survived by his wife of 67 years, Sylvia, and their four children: Michael and his wife Barbara, Elizabeth, Emily, and Margaret, as well as his sister, Evelyn Sackler, ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. A Celebration of Life will be observed at a later date, to be announced. Donations in lieu of flowers would be appreciated and may be directed either to the Department of Music or to Yolo Hospice.

Department of Music, UC Davis (Please make gifts payable to “UC Regents”)
1 Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
(530) 752-5537

Yolo Hospice
PO Box 1014
Davis, CA 95617
(530) 758-5566