Sidney Homer
Sidney Homer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 9, 1864 |
| Died | July 10, 1953 (aged 88) |
| Education | Phillips Academy |
| Spouse | |
Sidney Homer, Sr. (9 December 1864 – 10 July 1953) was a classical composer, primarily of songs.
Biography
[edit]Homer was the youngest child born to deaf parents in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 9, 1864 (some sources use 1865). He attended the 1884 class of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, but did not attend college, although he studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick and with Josef Rheinberger in Munich.[1] He married contralto Louise Dilworth Beatty in 1895.
Sidney and Louise had six children, including twin daughters Anne Homer and Kathryn Homer, son Sidney Homer, Jr. (economist and author), and daughter Louise Homer.
Sidney Homer died on July 10, 1953, in Winter Park, Florida.
Legacy
[edit]Sidney Homer's influence included his mentoring and supporting his nephew, the composer Samuel Barber. Scholarship on Homer was a particular focus of musicologist Harry Colin Thorpe.[2]
Homer composed many of his songs with the voice of his famous wife in mind. Among his most famous songs are "A Banjo Song" (Weeden), "Requiem" (Stevenson), "Casey at the Bat" (Thayer), and "The House that Jack Built" ("Mother Goose.")
Homer's memoir, My Wife and I, was published by Macmillan in 1939 and reprinted by Da Capo Press in 1978.
Notes
[edit]- ^ Homer, Sidney (1943). Seventeen Songs by Sidney Homer. New York: G. Schirmer. p. 3.
- ^ See Harry Colin Thorpe, "The Songs of Sidney Homer" in Musical Quarterly, Vol. XVII (1931), pp. 47-73.
External links
[edit]- Free scores by Sidney Homer at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Sidney Homer page at The Lied and Art Song Texts Page[permanent dead link]
- Sidney Homer scores (the composer's manuscripts) in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- The Songs of Sidney Homer
- Sheet music for "Plantation Hymn", G. Schirmer, New York, from the Alabama Sheet Music Collection
- Sidney Homer page at Song of America
| International | |
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| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
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- 1864 births
- 1953 deaths
- 19th-century American male musicians
- 19th-century American classical composers
- 20th-century American male musicians
- 20th-century American classical composers
- American male classical composers
- Classical musicians from Massachusetts
- People from Winter Park, Florida
- Phillips Academy alumni
- Burials in Warren County, New York
- American composer, 19th-century birth stubs