Arthur Custer

American composer born in Manchester, Connecticut on April 21, 1923. Died September 17, 1998.

Following army conscription between 1942-1946 he graduated from the University of Connecticut at Storrs in 1949, with a major in music education. After graduation, rather than pursuing a career in music education, Custer began studying composition at the University of Redlands in California. He studied composition under Paul Pisk at the University of Redlands. He graduated from Redlands in 1951 with a Master’s degree in Music. From 1952 he joined Kansas Wesleyan University before moving to the University of Omaha in 1955. He gained his PhD at the University of Iowa in 1956, under Philip Bezanson. Upon receiving his PhD, Custer took a position as the Director of the Music Section of the American School in Seville, Spain. Custer returned to the United States in 1962, becoming the Assistant Dean for Fine Arts at the University of Rhode Island. Custer left the University of Rhode Island in 1965 to become the Dean of the Philadelphia Musical Academy.

In 1967, he married Delores Borgaard, and they moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where Custer became the Director of the Metropolitan Educational Center in the Arts. He remained in St. Louis until 1970, when he returned to Rhode Island to become the Director of The Arts in Education Project for the Rhode Island Council of the Arts. In 1973 he was named Composer-in-residence for the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

Custer’s compositions were frequently abstract works that used serially ordered 12-tone techniques. His pieces often used electronic sounds, particularly pre-recorded tape that was integrated into the performance of the pieces.

In the 1970s and 80s, Custer began writing scores for television and film. As Grandpa Art he wrote and performed educational songs for children in the 1990s.