Douglas Allanbrook

Douglas Allanbrook (April 1, 1921 – January 29, 2003) was an American composer, concert pianist and harpsichordist. He was associated with a group of mid-twentieth century Boston composers who were students of Nadia Boulanger.

Allanbrook was born on April 1, 1921 and raised in Melrose, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He began taking piano lessons at the age of eight. Within two years he was playing Bach, Haydn, and Czerny. By thirteen, he started composing; his first serious piece was entitled On the Death of a Beautiful White Cat. While in high school, he was composing sonatas for violin and piano and writing sketches for a Symphony in G minor.

After high school, Allanbrook studied at Boston University for one year. In 1939 he was hired as a music teacher at the Mary Wheeler finishing school in Providence, where Gloria Vanderbilt was among his piano students. In 1941, the Rhode Island Symphony played his student orchestral work "Music for a Tragedy."

Durning the same year, Nadia Boulanger came to Providence to accept an honorary degree from Brown University. She heard some of Allanbrook's music and immediately took him under her wing. He began commuting regularly to Cambridge to study with her and to become part of her coterie of Boston composers, which included Harold Shapero, Irving Fine, Paul Desmarais, and Daniel Pinkham.

In the fall of 1942, the Army drafted Allanbrook. Serving as an infantryman for three years, he fought his way up the Italian peninsula, in the process earning a Bronze Star and starting his lifelong love affair with Italy. His time in Italy is recounted in his 1995 book, See Naples: A Memoir.

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