In memoriam: Graham Wootton (1985)

T.J. Anderson (b. 1928) — In memoriam: Graham Wootton (1985) for organ

“In memoriam: Graham Wootton” (1985), Anderson’s only work for organ, is one of a series of short memorial pieces written over the course of the composer’s life. They are all scored for different instruments and were usually written for premiere at a memorial service for one of the composer’s friends or colleagues. Anderson wrote: “Graham Wootton was Professor of Political Science at Tufts and a neighbor in Winchester, Massachusetts. We played tennis together and were referred to as ‘the odd couple.’ This we both found amusing because he was English and I, African-American, yet clearly both Americans. I personally admired his intellect, humor, thrift, and love of Tufts.”

American composer T.J. (“Thomas Jefferson”) Anderson (b. 1928) was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and was educated at West Virginia State College, Penn State University, and the University of Iowa. His principal teachers included George Ceiga, Philip Bezanson, Richard Hervig, and Darius Milhaud. Anderson held teaching positions at Langston University, Tennessee State University, and Tufts University, where he served from 1972 until his retirement in 1990. From 1968–71, he was composer in residence for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Musicologist Mark DeVoto wrote: “T.J. Anderson, as all the world knows him, has spent a long and distinguished career composing music reflecting a global awareness of human experience in the twentieth century, synthesizing Eastern and Western classical traditions with the Black experience in America. His works reveal inspiration from a variety of classical styles ranging from Purcell to Alban Berg, and techniques and forms ranging from the serially rigorous to the freely improvisatory, all arrayed in a stylistic panorama that is wholly ‘his own.’”