Gardner Read (January 2, 1913 inEvanston,Illinois – November 10, 2005 inManchester-by-the-Sea,Massachusetts) was an Americancomposer and musical scholar.

His first musical studies were inpiano andorgan, and he also took lessons incounterpoint andcomposition at the School of Music atNorthwestern University. In 1932 he was awarded a four-year scholarship to theEastman School of Music (B.M. and M.M.), where he studied withBernard Rogers andHoward Hanson. In the late 1930s he also studied briefly withIldebrando Pizzetti, andAaron Copland.

After heading the composition departments of theSt. Louis Institute of Music, theKansas City Conservatory of Music and theCleveland Institute of Music, Read became Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Composition at the School of Music atBoston University. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1978.

His Symphony No. 1, op. 30 (1937, premiered bySir John Barbirolli) won first prize at theNew York Philharmonic-Symphony Society's American Composers' Contest, while his second symphony (op. 45, 1943) won first prize in thePaderewski Fund Competition. Another first prize came in the 1986 National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Competition, won by hisNocturnal Visions, op. 145. He wrote oneopera,Villon, in 1967.

His bookMusic Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice (1969/1979) attempted to catalogue the rapidly changing landscape of notation for contemporary western art music.

• Dodd, Mary Ann, and Jayson Rod Engquist (1996).Gardner Read: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press.ISBN 0-313-29384-8. (Contains a complete list of his compositions.)
• Read, Gardner (1953, rev. 1969).Thesaurus of Orchestral Devices. Pittman Publishing Corp.ISBN 0837118840
• -- (1964, rev. 1972).Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice. Crescendo Publishing, (1964, 1972); Taplinger Publishing Company (1979, 2nd edition).ISBN 0800854535
• -- (1975, 1993).Contemporary Instrumental Techniques. Schirmer Books, 1975.ISBN 0028721004. Revised asCompendium of Modern Instrumental Techniques. Greenwood Press, 1993.ISBN 0313285128
• -- (1978).Modern Rhythmic Notation. Indiana University Press.ISBN 0253338670
• -- (1979).Style and Orchestration. Schirmer Books/MacMillan Publishing Company, 1979.ISBN 0028721101
• -- (1987).Source Book of Proposed Music Notation Reforms. Greenwood Press.ISBN 031325446X
• -- (1990).Twentieth Century Microtonal Notation. Greenwood Press.ISBN 0313273987
• -- (1998).Pictographic Score Notation. Greenwood Press.ISBN 0313304696
• -- (2004).Orchestral Combinations: The Science and Art of Instrumental Tone Color. Scarecrow Press, Inc.ISBN 0810848147

• Gardner Read official site
• Interview with Gardner Read, June 4, 1987

• 20th-century American classical composers
• Bienen School of Music alumni
• Concert band composers
• Eastman School of Music alumni
• University of Missouri–Kansas City faculty
• Cleveland Institute of Music faculty
• American opera composers
• American male opera composers
• Musicians from Evanston, Illinois
• 1913 births
• 2005 deaths
• Writers from Evanston, Illinois
• Pupils of Bernard Rogers
• Classical musicians from Illinois
• 20th-century American male musicians
• Albany Records artists

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata