Bagaduce music library acquires Lanese works

BLUE HILL – The Bagaduce Music Lending Library announces that composer Thomas Lanese, of Surry, Maine and Anneville, Penn., recently donated all of his music compositions to the library. The 11 compositions include sacred and secular works, piano pieces, vocal classical solos, operas, and chamber music works. The compositions will be housed in the music library’s “State of Maine Collection.”

Thomas Lanese was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and he received his bachelor of music degree in 1938 from Baldwin-Wallace College. He then received a graduate fellowship to study viola at The Julliard School of Music. When the U.S. entered World War II, Lanese’s string quartet enlisted in the army as a unit to play in the Irving Berlin musical “This Is The Army, Mrs. Jones.” He served a year in the European theater and a year in the Pacific.

After the war, Lanese met Denise Monteux in New York, through her brother, Claude, a fellow musician and good friend. The two were married in 1947, and began coming to Maine in the summer to visit Denise’s father, the conductor Pierre Monteux. During that period, Lanese played viola in the Pittsburgh Symphony, Kansas City Philharmonic, and served as assistant conductor of the Ft. Wayne Symphony.