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Thomas Whitney Surette

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Thomas Whitney Surette
Born(1862-09-07)September 7, 1862
DiedMay 19, 1941(1941-05-19) (aged 78)

Thomas Whitney Surette (September 7, 1862 - May 19, 1941) was an American musician, composer and teacher.[1]

Early life

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Born in Concord, Massachusetts, the son of Louis Athanase Surette, an Acadian commission merchant from Nova Scotia, and Frances Jane Shattuck.

Career

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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

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He married Ada Elizabeth Miles on June 20, 1899.[4]

References

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  1. ^ Surette, Thomas Whitney - By Charles W. Heffernan American National Biography
  2. ^ Kathleen Uhler Adams & Dorothea Bowditch Jones: Thomas Whitney Surette: a crusader for good music, Cambridge, MA: Windflower Press 1983, S. 102.
  3. ^ a b "Surette, Thomas Whitney." Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Encyclopedia.com. 26 Aug. 2018
  4. ^ Kathleen Uhler Adams & Dorothea Bowditch Jones: Thomas Whitney Surette: a crusader for good music, Cambridge, MA: Windflower Press 1983, S. 22.
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