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[Brockton, Lester]

(b Southville, MA, Oct 25, 1879; d Palisade, NJ, March 16, 1955). American composer, conductor, editor and arranger. He studied at the New England Conservatory and was playing the violin with professional symphony orchestras in Boston by the age of 16. From 1896 to 1910 he conducted various theatre orchestras, including the orchestra of the Teatro Payret, Havana, then one of the largest theatres in the western hemisphere. He later moved to New York, where he wrote arrangements for Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa, Edwin Franko Goldman, Percy Grainger, Henry Hadley and George M. Cohan. In 1913 he became editor-in-chief of band and orchestral music at Carl Fischer, a position he held for 35 years. His textbook, The American Band Arranger, was published by Fischer in 1920. He taught at the Ernest Williams School, Columbia University and New York University. He also conducted his band, Symphony in Gold, for NBC radio. More than 3000 of his arrangements and compositions were published, some under the pseudonym Lester Brockton. The Heritage of the March series of recordings includes a sample of his work. Lake’s autobiography is entitled ...

(b Stockholm, March 25, 1894; d New York, Dec 20, 1962). American composer, arranger and conductor of Swedish birth. He studied at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, Stockholm, emigrated to the USA in 1915, and by 1923 assumed leadership of the Salvation Army New England Staff Band. In 1926 he moved to New York, where he became music director of the Salvation Army’s Centennial Memorial Temple. He consequently composed hundreds of vocal and instrumental pieces for the Army, and wrote orchestral transcriptions and original works for the Goldman Band, many of which were published by Carl Fischer and Charles Colin. It has been suggested that he also made substantial contributions to many marches by E.F. Goldman and band works by Ernest Williams, including the Symphony in C minor. He was head of the theory department at the Ernest Williams School for eight years, director of the Swedish Glee Club of Brooklyn and the Arma Company band and a teacher at the National Music Camp, Interlochen, Michigan. Between ...

(b New York, Jan 25, 1921; d Coral Gables, FL, Sept 17, 2005). American composer and conductor of Austrian descent. Born Alfred Friedman, he began studying the trumpet at the age of ten and was playing professionally under the name Alan Reed while still in high school. Private study in theory and harmony with John Sacco and Paul Yartin (1937–8) led to a position as staff composer, arranger and assistant conductor for the Radio Workshop, New York (1938–42). After serving as associate conductor of the 529th US Air Force Band, he attended the Juilliard School (1946–8) where his teachers included Giannini. In 1948 he took a post as staff composer and arranger for NBC and later held a similar position at ABC. He became conductor of the Baylor University SO in 1953, and continued his education at that institution (BM 1955, MM ...

(b Bamberg, Nov 8, 1718; d Karlsruhe, Oct 24, 1809). German composer, conductor and glass harmonica maker. He received his musical education from the organ builder J.P. Seuffert in Würzburg and was a musician at the Rastatt court from about 1745 until its dissolution in 1771. There he was Konzertmeister in 1762 (leading the orchestra from the harpsichord) and Kapellmeister from 1765. In 1772 he became Konzertmeister at the Karlsruhe court, but in 1775 he went to Cologne as Kapellmeister at the cathedral and director of public concerts. Although his stay was brief, he had a lasting influence on Cologne’s musical life through his sacred compositions (in particular his mass for Epiphany, 1776, published in 1781) and through his introduction of modern orchestral methods in the style of Mannheim. In 1777 he accepted an invitation to return to Karlsruhe as Kapellmeister, and was also active there as a teacher and maker of glass harmonicas, whose range he extended from two octaves to four (...

(Alcantara) [Josef Anton]

(b Häselgehr, July 18, 1810; d Salzburg, Jan 25, 1882). Austrian composer, music theorist, organist, choirmaster and instrument maker. He was musically mainly self-taught; at the age or 9 he learnt to play the piano and organ, as well as the violin, harp, flute, clarinet and horn. When he was 11 he took lessons in harmony and basso continuo from P. Mauritius Gasteiger in Reutte. He attended the Gymnasium in Hall (1824–30), and took some organ and piano lessons from the organist Ignaz Heinz. He entered the Franciscan monastery of Salzburg in 1830 under the name of Peter von Alcantara, and was ordained in 1834. From 1837 to 1840 he was organist and choirmaster in Bolzano and Innsbruck, and he spent the rest of his life in the Franciscan monastery in Salzburg.

Singer became famous for the building of his ‘Pansymphonikon’ in 1845; this was a keyboard instrument with sets of reeds, two manuals and 42 registers which imitated an entire orchestra. He wrote contemplative works, a treatise on choral singing entitled ...