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October 29, 2004|Volume 33, Number 9



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Beekman Cox Cannon



In Memoriam: Beekman Cannon,
advocate of musical life at Yale

Beekman Cox Cannon, professor emeritus of music and former master of Jonathan Edwards College, who helped guide and support the development of the musical life in both Yale and New Haven, died on Oct. 19 at home.

He was 92 years old.

"Teacher, impresario, benefactor, Beekman Cannon nurtured a love for music in generations of faculty and students. His vision and generosity have helped to make Yale's history a crescendo in the musical arts," said President Richard C. Levin.

Professor Cannon was among the last of an older generation of Yale professors who spent most of their lives at the University and had a profound loyalty to Yale and a deep influence on it.

Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1911, he graduated from St. Paul's and received his B.A. from Yale in 1934. He attended the School of Music in 1934-1935 and was awarded one of the few Ph.D.s ever given in History, the Arts and Letters. He served in the Navy from May 1941 through January 1946, reaching the rank of commander. He joined the Yale faculty as an instructor in 1939 and retired in 1982.

Professor Cannon's best-known scholarly work was "Johann Mattheson, Spectator in Music" (1968), much of the material for which was collected in the Berlin Staatsbibliotek before it was severely damaged by bombing. Another book, "The Art of Music: A Short History of Styles and Ideas" (with Alvin Johnson and William Waite), was published in 1960.

Although he was a master pianist and continued to publish occasional scholarship throughout his life, Professor Cannon was best known as a teacher and as a force in the world of music, both at Yale and elsewhere.

Professor Cannon instilled an enthusiasm for music in generations of Yale students through his introductory course in music and his courses on "The History of Opera" and "Music in the 20th Century."

As master of Jonathan Edwards (JE) College from 1961 to 1974, he was a passionate advocate of the arts. His focus on the arts in the college actually began decades earlier, in the 1930s, when he was among faculty and students who formed a musical circle there. The group launched a popular series of concerts, operas, chamber music evenings, and Gilbert and Sullivan performances that eventually drew such musical luminaries as Ralph Kirkpatrick and Paul Hindemith to JE. In addition, students such as Day Thorp '36, later music critic of the Washington Star and co-founder of the Washington Opera, and Joe Clark '68, later technical director of the Metropolitan Opera, received their start by staging performances for JE. The history of much of this is chronicled in Professor Cannon's book "Music and The Performing Arts in Jonathan Edwards College 1933-1983," privately printed for JE.

Professor Cannon and his wife, Margaret, were also renowned for their generosity to Yale and to all the musical life of New Haven. Beginning in 1957, Professor Cannon was for many years president of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, which he also supported through his philanthropy. He was a long-term member of Yale's Friends of Music, and he lobbied for years for the creation of the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, which opened in a courtyard of the Sterling Memorial Library in 1998, thanks in part to his contributions to the project.

Professor Cannon was also a founder in 1975 of the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York, which is near Cherry Valley, where he had a summer home and where his family had lived for 250 years. In the early 1980s he was a mentor to Paul Kellogg, then starting as director of Glimmerglass and now the managing director of the New York City Opera.

"Beekman Cannon's influence on Glimmerglass Opera was immeasurable," Kellogg said recently. "He held us all to a high standard and with his wife, Margaret, brought total dedication to the cause. In addition to knowledge and enthusiasm, he provided funding, including a dressing-room building for the artists when the construction budget would not allow it."

"Beek," as he was known to his friends, and his wife were ardent horticulturalists who left gifts of hanging wisteria and spring daffodils as a legacy to JE. Both were known among their colleagues for speaking their minds, regardless of the consequences. (He was once the sole audience member to boo when Hitler was honored at an opera performance in Berlin.) Professor Cannon was an early and vocal supporter of Yale coeducation and was renowned for having little time or temper for those who did not share his sense of the importance of the arts to undergraduate life. In 2003 Yale undergraduate music students celebrated his 90th year with a performance of "Dido and Aeneas," supported in part by the Jonathan Edwards Trust.

Professor Cannon's wife died in 1993. He is survived by two nieces, a nephew, and six great nephews and nieces.

Contributions in Professor Cannon's memory may be sent to the Jonathan Edwards Trust, c/o The Master's Office, P.O. Box 208220, New Haven, CT 06520-8220, or to the Glimmerglass Opera, P.O. Box 191, Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326. A Yale memorial service will be held at a later time.


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