Composer Will Ogdon was a founding chair member of UC San Diego’s Department of Music.
He and Robert Erickson were the Department of Music's first two professors along with Tom Nee. They wanted to build a department that embraced and promoted aesthetic diversity, and has since grown into a fortress of experimental music, thriving on its students' thirst to explore the depths of music.
As a teacher of both theory and composition, Ogdon also composed music for his students, such as his “Tonal Songs,” not typical for their tonality, but utterly recognizable for their distinctive expressiveness and among his most beautiful music. Since retiring in 1991, Will Ogdon continued to write music every day. His music composed between 1995-1999 filled an entire CD, produced in 2001.
Ogdon passed away October 6, 2013, at the age of 92.