Ulysses Kay was born and raised in Tucson, went to the University of Arizona and then made it big. He was a composer with an international reputation and more than 100 compositions that were performed all over the world.
From the Arizona Daily Star, April 28, 1962:
'New Experience' Confessed
Composer Kay Comes Home
Famed Native Son To Lead One Of Own Pieces At UA Concert Tuesday Night
After an absence of more than eight years, Ulysses Kay, internationally known composer, arrived in Tucson yesterday and shared the feelings he possessed on returning to the Old Pueblo where he was born.
"Returning again to Tucson to conduct one of my pieces is for me a new experience and being here away from the pressures of New York gives me a new perspective."
Kay, who was graduated from the University of Arizona in 1938, will conduct his "Symphonia in E" at the Tucson Symphony Orchestra concert Tuesday night at the UA Auditorium.
Involved in music all of his life, and a composer of mostly symphonic and chamber music, Kay in his soft-spoken voice added, "I get a different impression of what music means in a community today."
He described the role he believes music plays in life by saying, "I feel arts in general and music in particular are necessary and important because they afford a different perspective to the individual and community than what is attained through routine daily activity."
Now entering his 10th year as a consultant for Broadcast Music Inc., one of the three major music licensing agencies in the nation, Kay told the Star he writes music only on evenings, week ends and holidays.
The 45-year-old composer, who has studied and toured abroad, recently in England with the American Wind Symphony orchestra, said he devotes a maximum of three hours at any one time to writing music.
Speaking on the transfer of musical thoughts into actual composition, Kay said it is inviting an idealized conception into reality.
Earlier this year Kay's one-act opera, "The Juggler of Our Lady," was produced by Xavier University at New Orleans. Kay said he worked some six months on the classical music piece, of 50-minutes duration.
Another of Kay's recent works, a strong quartet number, was commissioned by the University of Michigan and performed by the Stanley Quartet.
A future endeavor of the Negro composer will be the composition of a number to be played by the U.S. Marine Band on Sept. 22, at the celebration of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in Washington, D.C.
Kay, whose musical numbers have attracted international attention, has won numerous musical awards and fellowships during his career. His is the son of the late Sam Kay, a pioneer Tucson barber.
Kay passed away in 1995, leaving a vast musical legacy.
From the Star, May 31, 1995:
Composer Ulysses Kay dies at 78
Ulysses S. Kay, the Tucson musician who became the leading black classical composer of his generation, died May 20 in his New Jersey home. He was 78.
Kay was the son of a pioneer Tucson barber and the nephew of jazz cornetist King Oliver. He graduated from Tucson High School in 1934 and from the University of Arizona four years later. He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music and Yale and Columbia universities.
He received a prestigious Prix de Rome fellowship to compose in Italy from 1949 to 1952.
Kay later worked as a freelance composer for films and television in New York City, and served as a music consultant for Broadcast Music Inc. He joined the faculty of the Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York in 1968.
His catalog of more than 135 compositions includes 20 substantial orchestral works, which were performed by the likes of the New York Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C.
Kay also wrote five operas. The fifth was his last completed work, "Frederick Douglass." It covered the later life of the escaped slave and prominent newspaper publisher and abolitionist. It was premiered in 1991 by New Jersey State Opera.
Kay's formal visits to his home town were infrequent after the 1940s. But his appearances did include guest-conducting the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in 1954, and accepting an honorary doctorate from the UA in 1969.
And his birthplace figured in at least one composition. Kay described his "Theatre Set" as a reflection of burlesque shows he'd seen in his youth at the Rialto Theater in downtown Tucson.
At his death, Kay was working on a commission for the New York Philharmonic.
Ulysses Kay is one of our notable Tucsonans.
