Otto Luening (1900–96) was an American composer, flutist, conductor, and teacher. He taught at the Eastman School of Music, University of Arizona, Bennington College, Barnard College, and, from 1949 to 1970, at Columbia University. He served as Columbia's principal instructor in composition and was instrumental in establishing a doctoral program in composition. In 1958, he and Vladimir Ussachevsky founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, now the Computer Music Center at Columbia University. It is the oldest center for electro-acoustic music in the United States. He was a noted opera conductor and conducted the premieres of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium, Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All, and his own opera Evangeline. Luening worked and performed with RK at Bennington College, where they were both on the faculty. They also performed together at the Yaddo Festival and the Library of Congress.

January 24, 1944

Dear Ralph—

Yesterday I sent the Harpsichord Variations to you c/o Yale School of Music…. In my editorial (or compositional) notes I forgot to say that those places which go above the range of the harpsichord should be put down one octave at the discretion of the performer. I refer to the March. I hope you still will like the Variations, for one of the reasons I take so long getting pieces ready is to make sure I like them for more than just one week.

I now have finished the Fantasia for Harpsichord (or Piano is put in so it will be played by them too) and am winding up a set of canons. The Fantasia is going on blue prints and will be ready to send to you in a couple of days. I hope that the pieces and the dedication will please you, for that will please me. I never forget certain long and gnarly sessions in the first (& second) summer schools at Bennington during which certain side remarks of yours about composing, composers, American composing & composers impressed themselves on me and seemed to reaffirm some of my better talents.