Adorno, Theodor (11 September 1903–06 August 1969), social and political theorist, aesthetician, and atonalist musical composer, was born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund in Frankfurt, Germany, the son of Oskar Wiesengrund, a wealthy wine merchant, and Maria Calvelli-Adorno, a professional singer of Corsican and Genoese origin. He adopted his mother’s maiden name when his scholarly writing began to appear in 1938, perhaps reflecting his close attachment to her rather than to his remote father. His mother had borne her only child at age thirty-seven and lavished attention and resources on him, particularly with regard to “high” culture. His schooling included piano and composition training at a professional level (one teacher was Alban Berg) and philosophy with Edmund Husserl....
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Adorno, Theodor (1903-1969), social and political theorist, aesthetician, and atonalist musical composer
Alan Sica
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Bloch, Ernest (1880-1959), composer and educator
David Z. Kushner
Bloch, Ernest (24 July 1880–15 July 1959), composer and educator, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Maurice Bloch, a purveyor of tourist merchandise, and Sophie Brunschwig. Bloch senior, an official of the small Jewish community in Legnau, in the Canton of Aargau, provided his family with an Orthodox environment. Bloch exhibited an early interest in music, and during his teenage years he received training in violin from Albert Goss and Louis Etienne-Reyer and in solfège and composition from Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. He left school at the age of fourteen, shortly after his bar mitzvah. From 1896 to 1899 Bloch studied in Brussels, where his teachers included Eugène Ysaÿe, Franz Schörg, and François Rasse. Bloch’s compositions from this apprenticeship period reveal the influence of the Russian national school, particularly in matters of fluctuating meters, folk-flavored melodies, irregular rhythms, exotic scalar constructions, a propensity for modality, and coloristic scoring. His ...
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Bloch, Ernest (1880-1959)
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Cage, John (05 September 1912–12 August 1992), composer and philosopher
Laura Kuhn
Cage, John (05 September 1912–12 August 1992), composer and philosopher, was born John Milton Cage, Jr., in Los Angeles, California, the son of John Milton Cage, Sr., an inventor, and Lucretia Harvey, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Cage had early aspirations to be either a minister or a writer. In 1930, after two years at Pomona College, he went to Europe, where he studied architecture with Ernö Goldfinger and piano with Lazare Lévy in Paris. There he also began painting, writing poetry, and composing music. On his return to California in 1931, he studied composition with Richard Buhlig, developing a method employing two 25-tone ranges. He then moved to New York to learn more about harmony and music theory under the tutelage of Adolph Weiss; at the New School for Social Research in 1933, he also studied modern harmony, contemporary music, and Oriental and folk music with ...
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Chadwick, George Whitefield (1854-1931), composer and music educator
Victor Fell Yellin
Chadwick, George Whitefield (13 November 1854–04 April 1931), composer and music educator, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of Alonzo Calvin Chadwick, an insurance agent, and Hannah Godfrey Fitts. Both his parents were musically inclined. His father had been the president of the Martin Luther Music Association of Boscawen, New Hampshire, and was a sponsor of a singing school, where he had met his wife. Chadwick’s mother died eleven days after he was born. His father remarried and sent Chadwick, still an infant, to live with his grandparents for the next three years. When Chadwick was reunited with his father and stepmother, the family moved downriver to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where Alonzo became an insurance agent and participated in the local choral society, which performed at ...
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Chadwick, George Whitefield (1854-1931)
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Chávez, Carlos (1899-1978), influential Mexican composer/conductor, author, and educator, of Spanish and some Indian descent
Robert Rollin
Chávez, Carlos (13 June 1899–02 August 1978), influential Mexican composer/conductor, author, and educator, of Spanish and some Indian descent, was born Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez in Mexico City, the seventh son of Augustin Chávez, an inventor, and Juvencia Ramírez, a teacher. His mother supported the children after her husband’s death in 1902. Chávez began his musical studies at an early age and studied piano, first with his elder brother Manuel, then with Asunción Parra, and later with composer and pianist Manuel M. Ponce (1910–1914) and pianist and teacher Pedro Luis Ogazón (1915–1920). Chávez credited Ogazón with introducing him to the best classical and Romantic music and with developing his musical taste and technical formation. He received little formal training in composition, concentrating instead on the piano, analysis of musical scores, and orchestration. Chávez’s maternal grandfather was Indian, and from the time Chávez was five or six his family frequently vacationed in the ancient city-state of Tlaxcala, the home of a tribe that opposed the Aztecs. He later visited such diverse Indian centers as Puebla, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Michoacan in pursuit of Indian culture, which proved a significant influence on his early works....
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Chávez, Carlos (1899-1978)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
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Coerne, Louis Adolphe (1870-1922), composer and college professor of music
Ora Frishberg Saloman
Coerne, Louis Adolphe (27 February 1870–11 September 1922), composer and college professor of music, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Adolphe M. Coerne and Elizabeth Homan. After an early education in Germany and France, Coerne moved with his family to Boston. Following Coerne’s graduation from the Boston Latin School in 1888, he studied composition, harmony, and counterpoint with ...
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Converse, Frederick Shepherd (1871-1940), composer and educator
Victor Fell Yellin
Converse, Frederick Shepherd (05 January 1871–08 June 1940), composer and educator, was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Edmund Winchester Converse, a Boston dry goods merchant, and Charlotte Augusta Shepherd Albree. Educated in the public schools of his hometown, he entered Harvard College in 1889, where he studied with ...
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Dett, R. Nathaniel (1882-1943), composer and educator
Alan Levy
Dett, R. Nathaniel (11 October 1882–02 October 1943), composer and educator, was born Robert Nathaniel Dett in Drummondsville (now Niagara Falls), Ontario, Canada, the son of Robert Tue Dett, a musician and music teacher, and Charlotte Johnson, a musician. The Detts were a highly literate and musically active family, especially interested in European concert traditions. For young Dett, the classical traditions formed his musical roots, and he would never lose touch with them....
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Engel, Carl (1883-1944), composer, editor, and librarian
Carol June Bradley
Engel, Carl (21 July 1883–06 May 1944), composer, editor, and librarian, was born in Paris, France, the son of German parents Joseph C. Engel and Gertrude Seeger. Engel studied music, philosophy, and psychology at the Universities of Strasbourg and Munich. His musical training included individual instruction on the violin and piano and composition with Ludwig Thuille. The Engel family immigrated to the United States in 1905, settling in New York City. Engel quickly affiliated with the city’s young composers and musicians interested in new music and, later, their New Music Society of America, a group dedicated to the performance of American works....
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Fischer, Irwin (1903-1977), composer, conductor, and educator
Edith Borroff
Fischer, Irwin (05 July 1903–07 May 1977), composer, conductor, and educator, was born in Iowa City, Iowa, the son of Christopher Columbus Fischer and Ella Hornung. Fischer’s childhood was spent in a number of Iowa towns, where his father was at various times a farmer, a barber, and a shopkeeper. When he was eleven the family moved to Chicago. After appearing in high school productions of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, he decided to become an actor. His father opposed the boy’s going to college but died during his senior year, so Fischer decided to put himself through the University of Chicago. There he majored in theater and appeared in additional productions. He also continued piano study and composed a few short works. This interest in music kept enlarging, and upon his graduation in 1924 with honors (third year Phi Beta Kappa), Fischer enrolled at the American Conservatory of Music, also in Chicago....
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Hockett, Charles F. (1916-2000), linguist, anthropologist, and composer
Julia S. Falk
Hockett, Charles F. (17 January 1916–03 November 2000), linguist, anthropologist, and composer, was born Charles Francis Hockett in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Homer Carey Hockett, a historian, and Amy Francisco Hockett. At the age of sixteen, he entered Ohio State University, where his father served on the faculty. The university offered neither a linguistics nor an anthropology major to meet Hockett's interests in languages and cultures, so he began the study of Greek as part of a combined undergraduate/graduate program in ancient history. His first Greek instructor was the linguist ...
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Mennin, Peter (1923-1983), composer and educational administrator
Walter G. Simmons
Mennin, Peter (17 May 1923–17 June 1983), composer and educational administrator, was born Peter Mennini in Erie, Pennsylvania, the son of Attilio Mennini, a restaurant owner, and Amelia Bennaci. The elder Mennini was an avid record collector, and music was a central feature of the family environment. (Peter’s older brother Louis Mennini also became a professional composer. Peter later changed his name to avoid confusion between the two.) Peter began formal musical study at age five and started to compose at the age of seven. He entered the Oberlin College Conservatory in 1940 but left to join the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942. By this time he had already completed his First Symphony, a large work nearly an hour in duration. On completion of his military service in 1943, Mennin entered the Eastman School of Music, where his major teachers were ...
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Mennin, Peter (1923-1983)
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Paine, John Knowles (1839-1906), composer, organist, and teacher
Barbara Owen
Paine, John Knowles (09 January 1839–25 April 1906), composer, organist, and teacher, was born in Portland, Maine, the son of Jacob Small Paine, a proprietor of a music store, and Rebecca Beebe Downes. The family was highly musical. Paine’s grandfather, John K. H. Paine, was an organ builder, bandmaster, and music dealer who had been a fife-major in the War of 1812; his uncle David was an organist, composer, and music teacher; his uncle William was a trombonist and hymn tune writer; and his sister Helen Maria became a noted contralto soloist and vocal teacher in Portland....
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Parker, Horatio William (1863-1919), composer, music educator, and conductor
William K. Kearns
Parker, Horatio William (15 September 1863–18 December 1919), composer, music educator, and conductor, was born in Auburndale, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Edward Parker, an architect, and Isabella Graham Jennings, a poet. While a youth he received piano and organ lessons from his mother and later studied composition with ...
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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, ...
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Stanley, Albert Augustus (1851-1932), educator, conductor, and composer
William Lichtenwanger
Stanley, Albert Augustus (25 May 1851–19 May 1932), educator, conductor, and composer, was born in the village of Cumberland, Rhode Island, the son of George Washington Stanley, a physician, and Augusta Adaline Jefferds. After formal schooling in Slatersville, Rhode Island, and experience as organist in local churches, Stanley was sent by his father in 1871 to the Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied piano and organ in addition to general musical subjects. Upon his return to America in 1875 he served for a year as head of the two-person music department at Ohio Wesleyan Female College in Delaware, Ohio. In October 1876 he became organist of Grace Church in Providence, where he played Saturday organ recitals that were well received. In Providence he attracted many organ pupils, and at the Friends School there he gave advanced piano lessons to Quaker students....
