John Alden Carpenter

Life

Born: 28 February 1876

Died: 26 April 1951, Chicago

Biography

Born in Park Ridge, Illinois, Carpenter was raised in a musical household. He was educated at Harvard, where he studied under John Knowles Paine, and was president of the Glee Club, and wrote music for the Hasty-Pudding Club. Showing great promise as a composer, he journeyed to London to study under Sir Edward Elgar, later returning to the United States to study under Bernhard Ziehn in Chicago. It was there he earned a comfortable living as vice-president of the family business, a mill supply company. He was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity.

He composed several ballets, including one based on the Krazy Kat comics, and one, his best-known, possibly, entitled Skyscrapers (1926), inspired by his city of residence. One of his most famous works was 1914's impressionistic orchestral suite Adventures in a Perambulator. In 1932 he completed The Song of Faith for the George Washington bicentennial. Another ballet he was best known for was his Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1916).

View the Wikipedia article on John Alden Carpenter.

List of choral works

• I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn
• Light, my light
• On the day when death will knock at thy door
• On the seashore of endless worlds
• The sleep that flits on baby's eyes
• When I bring to you colour'd toys

 
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External links

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