Flanagan, William (14 August 1923–01 September 1969), composer and journalist, was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of William Flanagan and Elona (maiden name unknown), both of whom worked for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. As his was a nonmusical family, Flanagan received very little training as a child besides exposure to the scores of ...
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Flanagan, William (1923-1969), composer and journalist
Ruth C. Friedberg
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Fry, William Henry (1813-1864), composer, journalist, and music critic
Barbara L. Tischler
Fry, William Henry (10 August 1813–21 December 1864), composer, journalist, and music critic, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of William Fry, publisher of the National Gazette, and Ann Fleeson. Fry began his musical education by listening to his older brother’s piano lessons. He composed an overture while a student at Mount St. Mary’s School in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and afterward studied theory and composition in Philadelphia with Leopold Meignen, a graduate of the Paris Conservatory. Fry was eager to make his musical mark early, and he composed three more overtures before his twentieth birthday....
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Gleason, Ralph Joseph (1917-1975), journalist and music critic
James T. Fisher
Gleason, Ralph Joseph (01 March 1917–03 June 1975), journalist and music critic, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ralph A. Gleason and Mary Quinlisk. Gleason traced his devotion to jazz music to a day when, suffering from a case of the measles that kept him home from high school in Chappaqua, New York, he heard the music of ...
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Hentoff, Nat (10 June 1925–7 January 2017), writer and social critic
Ann T. Keene
Hentoff, Nat (10 June 1925–7 January 2017), writer and social critic, was born Nathan Irving Hentoff in Boston to Simon Hentoff, a haberdasher, and Lena Katzenberg Hentoff. Both parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. From an early age young Nat, as he was known, read widely and absorbed the intense political discussions that swirled around him in his Jewish working-class neighborhood, populated mostly by émigrés who were variously socialists, communists, and anarchists. Growing up in an Orthodox household, he often encountered anti-Semitism when he ventured outside his immediate milieu, giving him, he later recalled, an intense sympathy for the underdog. That experience also engendered a fierce desire to excel that gained him entrance to the Boston Latin School, a public institution that admitted only the brightest students in the city....
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Moore, John Weeks (1807-1889), music historian and newspaper editor
Dale Cockrell
Moore, John Weeks (11 April 1807–23 March 1889), music historian and newspaper editor, was born in Andover, New Hampshire, the son of Jacob Bailey Moore, a physician and amateur musician, and Mary Eaton. After attending high school in Concord, New Hampshire, and Plymouth Academy, Moore became an apprentice at the ...
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Peck, George Washington (1817-1859), author, editor, and music critic
Kevin J. Hayes
Peck, George Washington (04 December 1817–06 June 1859), author, editor, and music critic, was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, the son of George Washington Peck and Hannah Bliss Carpenter, farmers. Peck entered Brown University in 1833 and, after graduating in 1837, briefly taught school in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. In late 1837 he settled in Cincinnati, where he started the ...
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Root, Frederick Woodman (1846-1916), music teacher, author, and editor
Polly Carder
Root, Frederick Woodman (13 June 1846–08 November 1916), music teacher, author, and editor, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of George Frederick Root, a Civil War songwriter and teacher, and Mary Olive Woodman, a gifted singer. Frederick grew up in musical surroundings and became absorbed in his father’s educational and business pursuits. He studied piano with ...
