Alfred Reed (1921-2005) was born in New York City. He studied composition at the Juilliard School with Vittorio Giannini after a tour in the US Air Force during World War II. He was later a staff arranger for NBC in the 1950s and a professor of music at the University of Miami from 1966 to 1993. He is remembered today as a distinguished educator, conductor, and composer. His impact was the greatest in the wind band world, where he left behind more than 100 frequently performed works. He was particularly popular in Japan, where he developed a close relationship with the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, and where many of his works are required literature for all bands.

Alfred Reed biography at C. L. Barnhouse music publishing.

Reed wrote Rushmore in 1980, as he notes below:

Rushmore, A Symphonic Prologue for Winds, was commissioned by Paul and Lois Hedge, co-directors of the Rushmore Summer Music Camp in South Dakota, on the occasion of the camp’s 10th anniversary year, in 1980. It was first performed by the Rushmore Music Camp Symphonic Band under the direction of Kenneth Bloomquist, on August 16th, 1980, at the concluding concert of the session in the amphitheater at Mount Rushmore.

A brooding, mystic opening, representing, perhaps, the four great faces carved in stone gazing over the plains of America, introduces a broad melodic line that is meant to symbolize the inner strength and calm majesty represented by these four great Americans as guardians of our tradition and faith in the freedom of man. As this theme is developed, rising ever higher in the band’s registers, echoes of the opening fanfares enter, leading to a combination of this theme together with “America, the Beautiful,” and bring the work to a close in all the majesty and colors of which the modern concert band or wind ensemble is capable.

Listen:

Read more at J. W. Pepper, Barnhouse, and the Wind Repertory Project.

Also, check out this short documentary on Mount Rushmore: