Music of Alec Wilder, an album of Wilder's classical music (1946). Wilder also contributed two tone poems, "Grey" and "Blue", to the 1956 album, Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color. Wilder wrote the definitive book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 (1972). He was also featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the middle to late 1970s. With lyricist Loonis McGlohon (his co-host on the radio series) he composed songs for the Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North Carolina. Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a jigsaw puzzle. He also loved to talk (he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world) and most of all, laugh. Displeased with how Peggy Lee improvised the ending of "While We're Young", he wrote her a note: "The next time you come to the bridge [of the song], jump!" Pianist Marian McPartland told the story of this "alleged" comment to Tony Bennett, on her "Piano Jazz" radio show in 2004. Wilder died in Gainesville, Florida, from lung cancer in December 1980, and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Avon, New York, outside Rochester. Selected works Opera 3 children's operas: The Churkendoose; Rachetty Pachetty House, Herman Ermine in Rabbit Town (1942) The Lowland Sea (1952) Miss Chicken Little (1953) Sunday Excursion (1953) Kittiwake Island (1954) The Long Way (1955) The Impossible Forest (1958) The Truth about Windmills (1973) The Tattooed Countess (1974) The Opening (1975) Musicals Pinocchio (1957) Hansel and Gretel (1958) Miss Chicken Little (1953). Nobody’s Earnest (1978). Film music The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) Lot in Sodom (1933) Make Mine Music (1946) Albert Schweitzer (1957), documentary by Jerome Hill The Sand Castle (1961), directed by Jerome Hill Open the Door and See All the People (1964), directed by Jerome Hill Large ensemble A Child’s Introduction to the Orchestra (1954). Text by Marshall Barer. A musical primer. Eighteen movements featuring individual instruments of the orchestra. [Ludlow] Names from the War (1961), for narrator, chorus, brass quintet, and woodwind quintet Children’s Plea for Peace (1968). Children's SSAA chorus, narrator and wind ensemble. Text by Wilder, adapted from writings of Avon, New York schoolchildren. Dedicated to Rev. Henry Atwell. [Margun] Songs (selected list) "A Child Is Born" (lyrics only) "A Long Night" "Be a Child" "Blackberry Winter" "Ellen" "Give Me Time" "I'll Be Around" "It's