Beveridge Webster was an American pianist and educator.

Beveridge Webster studied with his father, initially, and in 1921, at age 14, he began five years of study in Europe, first at the American Academy at Fontainebleau, then at the Paris Conservatory with Isidor Philipp

Isidor Philipp

Isidor Philipp was a French pianist, composer, and distinguished pedagogue of Hungarian descent. He was born in Budapest and died in Paris.-Biography:...

 and Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

. He also studied in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 with Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...

. He made his New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 debut in November 1934 with the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

 performing Edward MacDowell

Edward MacDowell

Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...

's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Perhaps best known as an interpreter of French composers, especially Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Webster gave premieres or made first recordings of many contemporary works, including pieces by Louise Talma

Louise Talma

Louise Talma was a composer. She was raised in New York City and studied at the Institute of Musical Arts , 1922–1930, and received her bachelor of music degree from New York University and masters of arts degree from Columbia University...

, Roger Sessions

Roger Sessions

Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...

, Roy Harris

Roy Harris

Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an American composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No...

, Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 and Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

. Webster gave the first performance of Ravel's "Tzigane" in 1924. In 1968, over a three-concert series at The Town Hall

The Town Hall

The Town Hall is a performance space, located at 123 West 43rd Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, in New York City. It seats approximately 1,500 people.-History:...

, he commemorated the 50th anniversary of Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

's death with the first complete survey of the composer's piano works in New York.

A Time magazine

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 article from 1937 said of Webster, "Dark, well-knit, young Beveridge Webster is a good swimmer, takes pride in his tennis, likes to play poker or bridge with his great good friend Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

. He boasts of the little slam he once made against Sidney Lenz."

He taught at New England Conservatory from 1940 to 1946 and at the Juilliard School from 1946 to 1990. His students include Robert McDonald, Jahja Ling, Sylvia Glickman, Steven Graff

Steven Graff

-Early Years and Education:Steven Graff was born in Chicago where he studied piano with Eloise Niwa and made his debut as a soloist with The Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He went on to study at The Juilliard School as a Petschek Scholarship student, where his teachers included Adele Marcus, Beveridge...

 and Hao Huang

Hao Huang

Hao Huang is a concert pianist and professor of music at Scripps College as well as being a polymath published scholar in general music, popular music, ethnomusicology, anthropology, American Studies and Humanities...

. He made a substantial series of recordings issued on LP

LP album

The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 by Dover Publications

Dover Publications

Dover Publications is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche. It publishes primarily reissues, books no longer published by their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books in the public domain. The original published editions may be...

 and at least one, billed as the first installment in a complete traversal of Schubert's

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 piano sonatas, for MGM Records

MGM Records

MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...

, released as E3711.

Beveridge Webster had two children. One of them is Michael Webster, former principal clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is an American orchestra based in the city of Rochester, Monroe County, New York. Its primary concert venue is the Eastman Theatre at the Eastman School of Music....

. He played under the baton of Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 for a performance of Copland's clarinet concerto. Michael Webster now teaches at the Shepherd School at Rice University

Rice University

William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...

 in Houston, Texas.