Myron Moss

Myron D. Moss of Ardmore, Pa., a music program director and associate professor at Drexel University, died July 2, 2012. He grew up in central New Jersey and was a graduate of Princeton High School.

Dr. Moss was nationally known for his work on African-American composers, specifically related to band repertoire. Before coming to Drexel, he was music department chair and director of bands at Southern Connecticut State University. He was an invited guest conductor at Yale, the Hartt School, and the University of Michigan. He conducted the Keystone Winds’ CD Out of the Depths devoted to works by black composers. His band arrangement of Gabriel Faure’s Chant Funeraire was recorded by the University of North Texas Wind Ensemble on a 2006 GIA release and has been played by elite groups across the country. Earlier this year he conducted a performance at the Kimmel Center of the Drexel Concert Band playing music by African-American composers.

His University of Michigan PhD dissertation, “Concert Band Music by African-American Composers, 1927-1998,” won the Fritz Thelen Award for the best doctoral dissertation worldwide on a concert band music subject written between 1999 and 2005.

He is survived by his parents, Sonya Kleider and Robert I. Moss; his sister, Aleta McClelland; and two nephews, Daniel and Kian.

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Services were held July 6 with arrangements by Platt Memorial Chapels, Inc., Cherry Hill. A memorial will be held Oct. 10 at 3:30 p.m. at Drexel University’s Mandell Theater. Memorial contributions may be made to “The Music Program in Memory of Dr. Myron D. Moss” at Drexel.