One-Finder Melody Is "Pops" Hit

It was Dartmouth Night geared to one Dartmouth man—Robert Grant Jr. '46— when Arthur Fiedler conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra, introducing Grant's composition Evening Prayer last May. An audience of 2500 rose to cheer the music and its composer at the conclusion of a concert program made up of music loved by Dartmouth men.

The words for Evening Prayer were written by Grant, Navy veteran, and a victim of multiple sclerosis, while he was hospitalized in the Cushing General Hospital in Framingham, Mass. Mrs. Charles Davidson of Wellesley Hills, a Red Cross Gray Lady who had encouraged him in his love for music, urged him to work out a melody. Arthur Fiedler's attention was called to the one-finger composition; he liked it and sent his arranger to take the music down and make a full orchestration. As a feature of Dartmouth Night, a soloist sang, and the great Pops orchestra played Grant's piece.

Before his illness Grant had been a successful athlete at Hebron Academy, Dartmouth, and later in the Navy. But it was as a full-fledged composer that he said to the famous conductor who played his composition, "This is the greatest night of my life."

ROBERT GRANT JR. '46 and Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, look over the score of which the Navy veteran wrote while a patient at Cushing General Hospital.