In the 1930s and 40s, radio’s so-called “Golden Age,” Deems Taylor was the dominant “voice” of classical radio. Taylor was both the broadcast announcer of the New York Philharmonic on the CBS Network, and the opera commentator for NBC. He was also the voice-over narrator in the famous Disney animated film “Fantasia”.

In his day, Deems Taylor was also a very successful composer, producing a wide variety of works ranging from this 1922 orchestral suite entitled “Through the Looking Glass,” to grand operas, including two that were commissioned by and staged at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera in New York: “The King’s Henchman,” composed to a libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay premiered there in 1927, and “Peter Ibbetson,” based on a novel by George du Maurier, in 1931.

Deems Taylor was also a very fine writer and critic on musical topics, and the author of several books.

He was born in New York City on today’s date in 1885, and died there in 1966. The year after his death, ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, established the annual Deems Taylor Awards to acknowledge outstanding print, broadcast, and new media coverage of music topics.

And, we’re proud to say, in December of 2000, this program, Composers Datebook was one of the recipients of that award.