Mason, Lowell (08 January 1792–11 August 1872), music educator and composer, was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, the son of Johnson Mason, a businessman, and Catherine Hartshorn. Mason was educated in Medfield schools and singing schools, where he learned to read music. He took an active interest in music and at age sixteen conducted his church choir. Largely self-taught, he played many instruments and as a teenager led a local band. Nonetheless, he intended to become a businessman and not a musician, as he saw no future for himself in music, which offered little opportunity for a livelihood....
Article
Mason, Lowell (1792-1872), music educator and composer
Carol A. Pemberton
Article
Mathews, W. S. B. (1837-1912), music educator
Richard Colwell
Mathews, W. S. B. (08 May 1837–01 April 1912), music educator, was born William Smythe Babcock Mathews in London, New Hampshire, the son of Samuel S. Mathews, a Methodist minister, and Elizabeth Stanton Babcock. (His second given name was originally spelled “Smith.”) Encouraged by his mother to study music, Mathews was largely self-educated, a fact that might account for his failure to obtain a permanent teaching position in a college or university. He was broadly educated, however, reading widely in philosophy as well as in music, and his own success in self-education may account for his efforts to establish procedures by which others could become self-educated. In 1857 he married Flora Swaim, with whom he had seven children. In 1910, as an elderly widower, he married his business associate Blanche Dingley....
Article
Schuman, William Howard (1910-1992), composer, educator, and administrator
John E. Little
Schuman, William Howard (04 August 1910–15 February 1992), composer, educator, and administrator, was born in New York City, the son of Samuel Schuman, an executive of a printing company, and Ray Heilbrunn. He attended the public schools in New York. He took violin lessons as a youngster but showed no special proficiency. In high school he formed a jazz band. He also tried his hand at writing musical shows and popular songs, though he knew almost nothing about composition or musical theory. One of his collaborators, ...
Article
Tourjée, Eben (1834-1891), music educator
Paul A. Richardson
Tourjée, Eben (01 June 1834–12 April 1891), music educator, was born in Warwick, Rhode Island, the son of Ebenezer Tourjée, a mill worker, and Angelia Ball. Tourjée was employed as a manual laborer as early as age eight; consequently, his formal education and musical training were limited. About 1850 he became a clerk in a music store in Providence. By 1853 Tourjée had moved to Fall River, Massachusetts, where he opened his own music store and led the music at the Bank Street Methodist Church. From this time until he settled in Boston in 1867, Tourjée was active in Providence, Fall River, Newport, Rhode Island, and East Greenwich, Rhode Island, as a teacher, church musician, editor, and entrepreneur. He began a periodical, the ...
