Webster Young is the composer and librettist of five operas, including a two-act comic opera, The Wrong Party (1994) ; a pair of one-act operas based on the stories of Hemingway -- The Sun Also Rises and Madrid (1998) ; and a four-act romantic comedy based on his own story set in New York -- Stocks, Bonds, and Doggerel (2000). He recently completed a four act operatic version Shakespeare's As You Like It,
the first opera version of As You Like It since Veracini's Rosalinda.
Performances of his works are encouraged -- no royalty is asked in most cases -- only notification of performance details.
Mr. Young's great-uncle was Otto Harbach, author of some of the best known song lyrics of American operetta, including "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Rose-Marie", and "Indian Love Call". Harbach collaborated with the composers Rudolf Friml and Vincent Youmans. His older brother, Adolphe, was a conductor, Webster Young's great-grandfather.
Before working in opera Webster Young was one of the most productive ballet composers in recent decades, writing music for ten ballets which had fourteen productions. His music has been appreciated by PBS television audiences, thousands of ballet patrons, and radio listeners in the Pacific Northwest. The 1990 International Who's Who in Music listed Mr. Young as "the most prolific composer for ballet in the U.S. in the 1980's".
Webster Young's work composing for ballet was the subject of a documentary film entitled "Two for Ballet", which was seen on many PBS stations from 1991-93. The film, narrated by ballet historian David Vaughan, focuses on Mr. Young's collaboration with Eric Hyrst, formerly of The Royal Ballet of England and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens; and contains excerpts from five of their ballets. "Two for Ballet" was aired on 64 PBS stations nationwide, in many cases multiple times, and is available for educational distribution through Cinema Guild, Inc., New York.
The music of Webster Young has been published by Musicnotes.com (opera arias), Warner Bros/Belwin-Mills Music, Miami (piano music), and MMB Music, Missouri (orchestra). Recordings of his opera arias are available here.