Harold Wheeler spent greater than 5 a long time shaping the sound of American leisure — and it began on Howard College’s campus.
Howard College alumnus Harold Wheeler, the Tony-winning Broadway orchestrator, composer, and longtime musical director of “Dancing With the Stars,” died June 24, 2026, at his dwelling in Los Angeles following a prolonged sickness. He was 82. His demise was introduced by longtime household good friend and Broadway producer Lamar Richardson. Harold Wheeler’s Howard College roots formed not solely his profession however his total life. He met his future spouse on that campus, alongside future legends who would go on to vary American music without end.
The Yard That Modified All the things
Wheeler arrived at Howard within the early Sixties after graduating from Sumner Excessive Faculty in St. Louis. He had been enjoying piano since age 5, performing for Sunday college at Antioch Baptist Church, the place congregants as soon as included Chuck Berry and Ike and Tina Turner. That early present carried him all the best way to Washington, D.C.
At Howard, Wheeler crossed paths with a number of the most necessary musical skills of his era. He met fellow college students Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, each of whom would go on to change into defining voices in American soul music. He additionally met actress Hattie Winston, a fellow scholar who would later change into his spouse. The 2 married in 1978 and remained collectively till his demise, elevating daughters Marian and Samantha collectively.
Wheeler earned his B.A. from Howard in 1964 earlier than heading to the Manhattan Faculty of Music for his grasp’s diploma. The muse Howard gave him in these adolescence carried straight right into a profession that may contact almost each nook of American leisure.
After ending his schooling, Wheeler labored as an assistant program director for CBS-FM Radio in New York from 1968 to 1971. He left that function to pursue composing and training performers full-time — a choice that modified the trajectory of his life virtually instantly.
That very same yr, legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach employed Wheeler to conduct his new musical “Guarantees, Guarantees.” At simply 25 years outdated, Wheeler turned the youngest conductor in Broadway historical past. The function additionally made him one of many first African People to function musical director for a significant pop artist. It was the start of a Broadway profession that may span greater than three a long time and 31 productions.
Wheeler went on to orchestrate a number of the most celebrated musicals in Broadway historical past, together with “The Wiz,” “Dreamgirls,” “Hairspray,” “The Full Monty,” “Soiled Rotten Scoundrels,” and “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Occasions of the Temptations.” He earned Tony nominations for his orchestrations on “The Life,” “Little Me,” “Swing!,” “The Full Monty,” “Hairspray,” and “Soiled Rotten Scoundrels.” In 2003, he gained the Drama Desk Award for Excellent Orchestrations for “Hairspray.” In 2019, the Broadway neighborhood honored his lifetime of labor with a Particular Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement within the Theater.
A Profession That Reached Each Stage
Wheeler’s affect prolonged far past Broadway. He organized and produced music for a staggering listing of legends, together with Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, Diana Ross, Stevie Surprise, Ray Charles, and B.B. King. He performed piano on Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Mild” from the 1973 album “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.”
He carried out the opening and shutting ceremonies of the 1996 Summer season Olympics alongside fellow composers John Williams and Paul Shaffer. In 2004, Wheeler turned solely the second African American conductor in Academy Awards historical past when he served as music conductor for the 76th Academy Awards. He returned three years later as music arranger for the 79th Oscars.
From 2006 to 2013, hundreds of thousands of tv viewers knew Wheeler because the musical director for ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” His 28-piece reside orchestra and vocal ensemble turned a defining a part of the present’s id for 17 seasons, till producers shifted towards recorded music and Ray Chew took over the function.
A Legacy Rooted in Howard
Wheeler’s NAACP Theatre Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and his Particular Tony Award in 2019 cemented his place among the many most achieved musical administrators of his era. However for the HBCU neighborhood, his story carries a fair deeper resonance. He’s proof of what Howard College has produced for generations: artists who stroll onto that campus as college students and stroll off it as architects of American tradition.
Wheeler is survived by his spouse, Hattie Winston, the daughters they raised collectively, and his grandchildren. His music touched Broadway phases, Olympic ceremonies, Academy Award broadcasts, and hundreds of thousands of tv screens each week for years. All of it traces again to a younger man from St. Louis who discovered his folks, his objective, and his future spouse on Howard’s campus greater than 60 years in the past.
