Professor Samuel Headrick was a member of the Department of Composition and Theory and the School of Music faculty since 1981 until his retirement in 2022. Sam received his bachelors and master’s degrees from the University of North Texas before earning his Ph.D. in Composition at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, and Joseph Schwantner. He also studied composition with Martin Mailman and James Sellars. Other studies include horn with Roland Pandolfi, guitar with Alan Rosenkoetter, and electronic music with Barry Vercoe, James Dashow, and Allan Schindler.

Prof. Headrick’s compositional style is melodic and richly contrapuntal, featuring tonal textures combined with a fascinating, personal chromaticism. His music demands much of performers in ways that yield astonishingly impressive and invariably satisfying results. One reviewer said of his music: “another tone of voice altogether…expansive melodic lines of unmistakable nobility… the ending was very beautiful, and eloquent”. Another reviewer said: “brimming intelligence…a uniquely twentieth/twenty-first century interpretation of tension/resolution…never is the musical sacrificed to the merely virtuosic…an intellectual yet visceral work…very much its own piece”. Yet another reviewer said: “imaginative, exciting…original…delightful…could easily become standard repertoire…very well crafted, filled with exciting and expressive music…this is a first-rate product…there aren’t any negatives”. Some of Sam’s larger works are The New Kid, a ballet which he describes as a Choreo-Drama, Symphony No, 2 subtitled Hope Rising, and his full-length opera Hostage. Other notable works include Brass Quintet No. 1 subtitled Passages, Brass Quintet No. 2, Polyphonic Fantasy for string quartet, Silver Fanfare for brass quintet, Piano Album, an ongoing series of pieces for solo piano, Five Movements for mezzo-soprano, flute, and piano, Suite for solo double bass, Divertimento for five instruments, Awakenings for orchestra, Elegy for orchestra, and A Breaking of Waves for chamber orchestra. Concertante 314: Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra of Seven Double Basses was composed for Boston Symphony Orchestra principal contrabass Ed Barker and premiered at Seiji Ozawa Hall by Prof. Barker and Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center. Portions of Symphony No. 2, Hope Rising, have been performed by the Boston University Symphony Orchestra, and a chamber version of Hostage was premiered with six performances by the Boston University Opera Institute. Sam has had performances and commissions from organizations such as the St. Louis Symphony Chamber Players, ALEA III, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, the Huntington Theater Company, the Boston University Mainstage Theater, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, the Concordia Trio, the Esterhazy String Quartet, the Synergy Brass Quintet, the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble, the Armory Brass Quintet, and Boston Musica Viva. He has also had performances and commissions at festivals such as the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival in Vermont, the Savannah Onstage International Arts Festival, the Fourth Annual New York City Festival of New Trumpet Music, and the Iraklion International Festival of the Arts. Other performances include those by baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist Konstantinos Papadakis, and at the International Trumpet Guild Convention, Samford University, the Nantucket Musical Arts Society, and the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Association (TUBA) International Convention.

Sam has presented his music and given lectures and master classes at UC Berkeley, Williams College, Trinity College, UCLA, M.I.T., the Peabody Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, the University of North Texas, the University of Arkansas, the Berklee College of Music, the Boston Conservatory, and for both the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the “Dinner at Symphony” series for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has also given several presentations for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Composition program. He has been a Visiting Instructor at the State University of New York at Potsdam and a Visiting Associate Professor in Composition at Brown University.

Prof. Headrick has been Guest Conductor for the St. Louis Symphony Chamber Players' On-Stage Series, and Music Director and Composer for the Huntington Theater Company's production of Twelfth Night. He has also been conductor for the Boston University Contemporary Collegium, the new-music group Underground Composers, and for the second annual New Music Festival at the Crane School of Music.

Some of the honors Sam has received include a National Endowment for the Arts Composers Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts New Works/ Collaborative Fellowship, and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fellowship in Composition. He has been Artist-in-Residence at the Berklee College of Music and Guest Composer at Webster University. He was twice Composer-in-Residence with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He received an International Commission Award from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation based in Munich and he was a finalist in several other notable competitions. He has also received two Meet the Composer Grants and annual awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Boding well for his future, at the age of 15 Sam was the subject of a feature article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch for winning First Place Virtuoso Prize at the Mid-America Music Association Convention.

Prof. Headrick received significant funds as principal investigator for a grant to develop the School of Music’s electronic music studio from its infancy and served as the studio’s director in its early years. He has taught a large variety of courses – 35 different ones – during his time at B.U., from music theory for non-majors through advanced analysis classes. His course “Jazz and Pop Arranging” was the first course in popular music offered in the School of Music. He was advisor and reader for many master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. Outside of BU, he has been Treasurer of ALEA III and on the advisory board of several other ensembles. He has been an external evaluator for promotion and tenure cases and has been an adjudicator for both the ALEA III International Composition Competition and the Kucyna International Composition Competition. He has given a significant amount of service to his community in Waltham.

Sam would say that he successfully used the mimeograph machine before there were copiers and taught well with his hands covered in blue ink. He always graciously agreed to teach courses that were necessary and vital for the curricula of all students in the School of Music. His teaching style provided a rich context and encouraged proactive learning. Students found him to be a kind, compassionate, patient, and helpful teacher, and he was always in strong demand as a composition instructor. He was enormously supportive of his students in his enthusiastic encouragement of their talent and faithful attendance at their events. Sam’s composition lessons focused on leading students to insights about their own music through a dialogue of continuous questions and commentary. Many of his former students are having fine careers in the musical world, and several have won very impressive national and international awards. One former student was co-winner of the Toru Takemitsu International Music Competition. Another won the National Band Association Composition Competition. Still other former students hold professorial positions at universities and conservatories. Sam has accumulated a collection of around 500 letters of recommendation, attesting to his magnanimous support of students in both the classroom and from his composition studio as well as colleagues in the School of Music and musicians in the professional world.

Over the course of 41 years at Boston University, Professor Sam Headrick was without fail positive, encouraging, warm, devoted, responsible, and enthusiastic, and he was an absolutely essential part of both the Department of Composition and Theory as well as the entire School of Music during this time. Our colleague Prof. Ketty Nez has said "Sam is generous, warm, terribly witty. We'll chat about teaching, music, and life, and he always has great insights to share. We also swapped a lot of helpful tips about back treatments and different doctors in the Boston area. Dedicated to his students' growth, Sam is a true teacher. I was lucky to have him as a colleague for so many years.” The concert tonight is a tribute to this wonderful colleague and friend, a man of truly great talent, dedication, honor, virtue, and integrity.

By Martin Amlin
Mildred P. Gilfillan Professor of Music
Chair, Department of Composition and Theory
School of Music
College of Fine Arts
Boston University