manager in the music industry

Abbott, Emma (09 December 1850–05 January 1891), soprano and opera impresario, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Seth Abbott, an itinerant musician and music teacher, and Almira Palmer. Abbott’s father encouraged her and her brother George to develop the musical ability that they demonstrated at an early age. Emma, who sang constantly as a child, chose the guitar as her instrument; her brother studied the violin. In 1854 the family moved from Chicago to Peoria, Illinois, and their fortunes declined. To supplement the family income Seth Abbott and the two musical children began to give concerts in Peoria and elsewhere starting in 1859; according to contemporary biographical lexicographer F. O. Jones, the trio performed hundreds of concerts during this period....

Barnabee, Henry Clay (14 November 1833–16 December 1917), singer and actor, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the son of Willis Barnabee and Mary (maiden name unknown). His father was a stagecoach driver who became an innkeeper. Willis Barnabee’s wife was cook, and his adolescent son Henry was odd-jobs man and at times bartender....

Bing, Rudolf (09 January 1902–02 September 1997), opera impresario, was born in Vienna, Austria, to Ernest Bing, an industrialist, and Stefanie Hoenigsvald Bing. Both parents encouraged their four children to share their interest in music, which included playing chamber music at home and regular attendance at the opera. Rudolf developed a particular love for both art and music and showed an inclination to pursue a musical career as a concert singer. After graduating from secondary school in Vienna, he studied voice with a private teacher, but his hopes of becoming a performer were dashed by the collapse of the Austrian economy following the country's defeat in World War I. He was forced to get a job quickly, and he found employment in a Vienna bookshop....

Gallo, Fortune (09 May 1878–28 March 1970), opera impresario, was born Fortunato Gallo in Torre Maggiore, Italy, a town located a hundred miles east of Naples, the son of Tommaso Gallo and Zelinda Accetturo. He was encouraged as a boy by his father to become a musician, although his mother had hoped he would enter the priesthood. He learned to play the harmonica at age eight and at age fourteen became an apprentice drummer in the town band. When Gallo was seventeen the visit to Torre Maggiore of a man who had gone to the United States and prospered in the produce business suggested similar possibilities for the youth. At the visitor’s urging his family agreed to let him seek his own fortune in the New World....

Gatti-Casazza, Giulio (03 February 1869–02 September 1940), opera impresario, was born in Udine, Italy, the son of Stefano Gatti, a military officer and later a member of the Italian Parliament, and Ernestina Casazza. After a childhood spent in military garrisons throughout central Italy while his father steadily advanced in rank, Giulio was sent to the National College in Milan, where he studied solfeggio and music theory. From there he was sent to the Arnaldi College, a Jesuit academy in Genoa, and subsequently to the Naval Academy in Leghorn in preparation for a career at sea. Failing to make the grade at the academy (“I studied quite carelessly, demonstrating no special aptitude for my chosen career,” he admitted in his memoirs), he transferred to the University of Ferrara, where his parents were then living. He received his naval engineering degree there in 1891. By this time his father had become chair of the governing board of the Teatro Communale, the local opera house, one of several civic responsibilities he assumed in Ferrara....

Grau, Maurice (1849–14 March 1907), music and theater impresario, was born in Brno, Moravia, the son of Emmanuel Grau and Rosalie (maiden name unknown). In about 1854 he immigrated with his parents to New York City, where they ran a boardinghouse. Grau began working in the theater for his uncle Jacob Grau while studying at the College of the City of New York. Upon graduating in 1867, he enrolled at Columbia Law School. But, preferring his uncle’s profession, Grau left without graduating, instead holding “about every place that one can hold in the theater, except on the stage.” Other members of Grau’s family involved in theater management included a brother, two cousins, and a second uncle. Information regarding Grau’s marital status is sketchy. Biographical sources indicate that he married Marie Durand in 1883, but obituaries list his widow as Jeannette....

Greenwall, Henry (1832?–27 November 1913), theater manager, was born in Germany and brought to New Orleans by his parents (names and occupations unknown) in 1837 at the age of five. Details of his family background and his childhood are almost entirely lacking.

Sometime around 1865 Henry and an older brother, Morris, moved to Galveston, Texas, and opened a brokerage firm. In 1867 they rented a theater in the hope that they could enable a stranded actress to recover enough money to repay a debt to the firm. The venture proved profitable and launched Greenwall on a lifelong career as a theater manager in Texas and the South. He acquired a building that had been the first in Galveston designed specifically as a theater, formed Greenwall’s Star Stock Company with actors and actresses he employed during a trip to New York, and opened the New Galveston Theatre on 21 November 1867. On 14 December 1868 he also leased the Perkins Theatre in Houston....

Hammerstein, Oscar (08 May 1848–01 August 1919), inventor, operatic impresario, and theatrical manager, was born in Berlin, Germany (although his family lived in Stettin, Prussia), the son of Abraham Hammerstein, a well-to-do, German-Jewish merchant, and Bertha Valentine, from a musically oriented French Huguenot family. Hammerstein was educated by private tutors, but at age sixteen, after a severe and unwarranted punishment from his father, he ran away from home. He fled to England and then boarded a ship bound for America, paying for his passage by selling his violin. Arriving at New York, Hammerstein found employment filling rush orders for the U.S. Army at a Pearl Street cigar factory. Within two years he had mastered the process well enough to invent a machine that greatly improved cigar production. Patented in July 1865, the invention revolutionized cigar making but brought only about $6,000 to the young inventor. However, subsequent similar labor-saving inventions reportedly brought him more than $1 million. In 1884 he invested his first royalties in the ...

Johnson, Edward (22 August 1878–20 April 1959), tenor and opera impresario, was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, the son of James Evans Johnson, a grain merchant, and Margaret O’Connel. His parents encouraged his musical development and he was singing solos in church by age seven. Ten years later he had become the leading oratorio and concert tenor in Ontario....

Kellogg, Clara Louise (09 July 1842–13 May 1916), soprano and operatic impresario, was born in Sumterville (now Sumter), South Carolina, the daughter of George Kellogg and Jane Elizabeth Crosby, teachers. Both of her parents were from well-established Connecticut families, and shortly after her birth the family returned north, to Birmingham (now Derby), Connecticut. Clara Louise’s father worked as an inventor and manufacturer, but his business failed around 1855; as a result the Kellogg family moved to New York City....

Maretzek, Max (28 June 1821–14 May 1897), opera impresario, conductor, and composer, was born Maximilian Mareczek in Brünn, Moravia (now Brno, Czechoslovakia). His formal education emphasized literature and the classics; he was also instructed on the piano and pursued general music studies. He enrolled at the University of Vienna at the age of seventeen, first to study medicine, then law (both professions were acceptable to his parents). He discarded both, however, and with the encouragement of the Austrian music historian and teacher Joseph Fischof turned his attention to music, his first love. His major field of concentration was composition, which he studied with the composer and conductor Ignaz Xaver Ritter von Seyfried. These studies resulted in his first major work, the opera ...

Neuendorff, Adolph Heinrich Anton Magnus (13 June 1843–04 December 1897), conductor, composer, and administrator, was born in Hamburg, Germany. He came to the United States with his parents (names unknown) in 1854 in the first wave of German immigrants. The family settled in New York, where his father was employed as a bookkeeper. Neuendorff studied violin with George Matzka, a violist in the New York Philharmonic and its emergency conductor in 1876, and with Joseph Weinlich. His principal piano teacher was Gustav Schilling, who also taught him composition and theory. Schilling was noted for writing a six-volume encyclopedia of music, the ...

Savage, Henry Wilson (21 March 1859–29 November 1927), real estate entrepreneur and theatrical manager, was born in New Durham, New Hampshire, the son of Captain M. Henry Savage and Betsey Woodhouse. He graduated from Harvard University in 1880 with an A.B. degree and entered the field of real estate. For fifteen years he built up a thriving real-estate business before he switched careers almost accidentally. In 1894 Savage built the Castle Square Theatre in Boston as an investment. The following year the manager of a light opera troupe deserted his company, and the desperate performers turned to Savage for assistance. Savage took over the operation and began his managerial career on 6 May 1895 with his company presenting light opera in English. The Castle Square Opera Company soon gained a large following and a reputation for high-quality musical productions offered at reasonable prices. Savage arranged extensive nationwide tours for his company, and eventually it branched out to Romantic opera and grand opera, presenting ...

See Seguin, Arthur

Seguin, Arthur (07 April 1809–13 December 1852), and Anne Seguin (1809–24 August 1888), opera singers, were born, respectively, Edward Arthur Sheldon Seguin and Anne Childe, both in London, England. The names of Arthur Seguin’s parents cannot be ascertained. Anne Seguin was the daughter of James W. Childe, an artist (her mother’s name is not known). Anne and Arthur met at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where their professional training began. They married in 1832 and had five children....

Strakosch, Maurice (15 January 1825–09 October 1887), and Max Strakosch (27 September 1835–17 March 1892), opera and concert impresarios, were born in Gross-Seelowitz (now Zidlochovice), near Brünn, Moravia (now Brno, Czechoslovakia), the sons of a liquor distiller and his wife. Maurice was also a pianist and a composer. Max and Maurice’s brother Ferdinand also worked as an impresario, and their sister Louise performed as a singer under the name Madame Fischoff....

See Strakosch, Maurice