Thomas Whitney Surette
Thomas Whitney Surette | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 7, 1862 |
| Died | May 19, 1941 (aged 78) |
Thomas Whitney Surette (September 7, 1862 - May 19, 1941) was an American musician, composer and teacher.[1]
Early life
[edit]Born in Concord, Massachusetts, the son of Louis Athanase Surette, an Acadian commission merchant from Nova Scotia, and Frances Jane Shattuck.
Career
[edit]Surette studied piano with Arthur Foote and composition with John Knowles Paine at Harvard University from 1889 to 1892, but failed to obtain a degree. In 1907, he was appointed music reader at Columbia University. In 1915, he founded Concord Summer School of Music, which operated until 1938.[2] In 1921, he was appointed Director of Music at Bryn Mawr College.
Surette published the following: The Appreciation of Music (with D.G. Mason; 5 vols., of which vols. 2 and 5 were by Mason alone; N.Y., 1907; innumerable subsequent printings), and, on a more elevated plane, Course of Study on the Development of Symphonic Music (Chicago, 1915) and Music and Life (Boston, 1917); He wrote two light operas: "Priscilla, or The Pilgrim’s Proxy", after Longfellow (Concord, March 6, 1889; which had more than 1,000 subsequent performances in the US), and "The Eve of Saint Agnes" (1897), as well as a romantic opera, "Cascabel, or The Broken Tryst"(Pittsburgh, May 15, 1899).[3]
Surette was also largely responsible for the vogue of music appreciation courses that swept the country and spilled over into the British Isles.[3]
Personal life
[edit]He married Ada Elizabeth Miles on June 20, 1899.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ Surette, Thomas Whitney - By Charles W. Heffernan American National Biography
- ^ Kathleen Uhler Adams & Dorothea Bowditch Jones: Thomas Whitney Surette: a crusader for good music, Cambridge, MA: Windflower Press 1983, S. 102.
- ^ a b "Surette, Thomas Whitney." Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Encyclopedia.com. 26 Aug. 2018
- ^ Kathleen Uhler Adams & Dorothea Bowditch Jones: Thomas Whitney Surette: a crusader for good music, Cambridge, MA: Windflower Press 1983, S. 22.
External links
[edit]- Thomas Whitney Surette (1861-1941) : a Concord reformer : holograph, 1978 Mar. 10
- Thomas Whitney Surette : musician and teacher
- Thomas Whitney Surette : a crusader for good music
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