H. Owen Reed

Reed later studied Native American musics in Taos, New Mexico and Arizona, and eventually composed a trilogy of chamber operas based on Native American legends: Earth Trapped (Sioux, 1960), Living Solid Face (Algonquin, 1974), and Butterfly Girl and Mirage Boy (Hopi-Aztec, 1980). His band composition Missouri Shindig (1951) is based on the American fiddle tune "Give the Fiddler a Dram," which his father had particularly enjoyed playing. Spiritual (1947), Reed's first composition for band, is based on his recollection of overhearing the exuberant religious expression of African American churchgoers while passing by their churches as a child.

Reed's best known and most widely performed work is the three-movement concert band composition La Fiesta Mexicana (1949), composed with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship. The work is based on Aztec, Roman Catholic, mariachi, and other music Reed heard while in Mexico City, Cuernavaca, and Chapala, Mexico for six months between 1948 and 1949. He returned to Mexico in 1960 for a month's further study. He also studied folk music in the Caribbean in February 1976, and in Norway in the summer of 1977.

H. Owen Reed joined the composition faculty of Michigan State College in 1939. His career at MSU lasted for nearly 40 years. Reed retired from MSU in 1976. Upon his retirement, MSU granted the title of Professor Emeritus unto Reed.

In 1937 he enrolled at the Eastman School of Music (studying composition with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, conducting with Paul White, musicology with Howard Gleason, and music theory with Allen I. McHose), receiving a Ph.D. in composition in 1939. In 1942, at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood), Massachusetts, he studied composition with Bohuslav Martinů, and contemporary music with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Stanley Chappel. In the summer of 1947, he studied composition with Roy Harris at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and also attended lessons with Arnold Schoenberg.

In addition to his childhood with musically inclined parents, he was also attracted to the popular piano music of the 1920s (such as the novelty piano tunes of Zez Confrey), as well as his family's player piano, which played popular tunes. He studied piano with Odessa's only piano teacher, Mrs. Felts, who attempted to interest him in the music of Bach and Beethoven.

Herbert Owen Reed (June 17, 1910 – January 6, 2014) was an American composer, conductor, and author.