Edward MacDowell

Born in New York City in 1861, pianist/composer Edward MacDowell formally studied music at an early age. He went to Paris, France, at age 15 and attended the world-famous Conservatoire. Two years later he left France and traveled to Germany, where he studied at the Frankfurt Conservatory. He found his Niche there, and three years later he was appointed head piano instructor at the Darmstadt Conservatory, where he began his composing career. He worked with famed composer Franz Liszt, who was impressed with his work and encouraged him to continue composing.

His compositions met with success in Europe, and he returned to the US in 1884, where he married Harriet Nevins, who had been one of his pupils in Germany.

They returned to Germany shortly thereafter, living in Wiesbaden until 1888, when they went back to the US and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. He began to teach music privately, and performed works of his own and other musicians' all over the city.

In 1896 he was offered the job of head of the new Music Department at Columbia University in New York, and he accepted. There he began an orchestra and a chorus, but when he attempted to make the musical arts part of the academic curriculum, he ran into strong opposition from the more conservative academics, who argued that serious music students did not study at American universities but traveled to Europe for study, as he did. He was not able to overcome those faculty objections, and, exasperated, he resigned from his position and took to his farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Although he continued to compose music, he rarely made public appearances after that incident.

Pictured on the 5¢ US postage stamp in the Famous Americans/Composers series, issued 13 May 1940.