Concert & Archival Exhibit Honors Work of the Late Harry Hewitt:
Philadelphia Composer, Poet and Scholar

April 2008

The work and life of the late Philadelphia composer, poet and scholar Harry Donald Hewitt [1921-2003] was honored during “Remembering,” a concert and public unveiling of the Hewitt Archival Collection presented by the School of Music & Performing Arts (SMPA) of Philadelphia Biblical University on Saturday, April 5, 7 p.m., in PBU’s Lewis Holmes Recital Hall, Langhorne, PA.

The concert, followed by a reception and special exhibit, featured vocal, instrumental, and piano performances of his works as well as premieres of Hewitt pieces that are among the Collection’s 3,000 scores, manuscripts, recordings, diaries, essays and correspondence archived and available to the public at PBU through the generosity of Hewitt’s wife Elizabeth. The significance of those works and insights into “one of the most prolific composers in the history of American music” was offered during the concert by Elizabeth Hewitt and Kile Smith, who is a composer and Curator of the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music, Free Library of Philadelphia.

The PBU Collection in the Masland Learning Resource Center Archives becomes the sole location of Hewitt’s original vocal, instrumental and chamber works and includes correspondence from some of the most significant musicians, poets and scholars of the twentieth century.

“Friends such as W. H Auden, Joe Barone, George Rochberg, Eileen Flissler, Kenneth Patchen, Rudolf Firkusny and Leopold Egerinski, to name just a few, provided Harry with intellectual and musical stimulation, which in turn became his music,” notes PBU Collection Curator Jennifer E. Kleeman in Harry Hewitt: An Introduction. “Correspondence with others such as Paul Henry Lang, Clifford Taylor, Vincent Persichetti, Edgard Varese, Harold Schonberg, Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein, Vida Chenoweth, Leopold Stokowski, Virgil Thompson, Yehudi Menuhin, and William Schumann placed Hewitt in the center of musical culture during the 1950's-1970's.”

The goal of PBU’s SMPA is to continue research and performance of materials in the Harry Donald Hewitt Collection which exists in partnership with the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music which holds many of Hewitt’s larger orchestral works.

Interested researchers, scholars, performers and publishers should contact the curators of the Hewitt Collection: Jennifer Kleeman or Adam Dieffenbach ( hewittcollection@gmail.com).