Ulysses Kay met the eminent neoclassical composer Paul Hindemith in the summer of 1941 at the Berkshire Music Center and followed Hindemith to Yale for a formative year of study from 1941 to 1942.
After a stint as a musician in the United States Navy during World War II,[3] Kay studied at Columbia University under Otto Luening with the assistance of a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund.[4] In addition to this prize, Kay received a series of five other significant awards in the year following his discharge from the Navy including the Alice M. Ditson Fellowship, a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an award from the American Composers and American Broadcasting Company,[5] a $500 award from the third annual George Gershwin Memorial Contest for "A Short Overture," and a $700 award from the American Composers Alliance for his "Suite for Orchestra."[6]
Following this successful period, he lived and studied further in Rome from 1949 to 1953 thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship, the Rome Prize and a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship.[2]
^Sullivan, Ronald. "Ulysses Kay, Prolific Composer And Educator, Is Dead at 78", The New York Times, May 23, 1995. Accessed September 21, 2011. "Ulysses Kay, a professor of music and a prolific composer of five operas, 20 large orchestral works and scores of choral, chamber and film compositions, died on Saturday in Englewood Hospital in Englewood, N.J. He was 78 and lived in Teaneck, N.J. The cause was Parkinson's disease, his family said."