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William Otto Miessner (May 26, 1880 - May 27, 1967) was an American composer and music educator. Most of his life was spent in the midwest, particularly Indiana and Wisconsin.
Born in Huntingburg, Indiana, Miessner was the son of Charles Miessner and Mary Miessner (née Reutepohler) and the older brother of Benjamin Franklin Miessner. He graduated from Huntingburg High School in 1898. [1] He earned a diploma from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he studied music theory with A. J. Gantvoort, piano with Frederick Hoffman, and singing with Adolph Devin-Duvivier. He later pursued further studies in New York with Frederick Bristol (singing), A. J. Goodrich (harmony and counterpoint), and Edgar Stillman Kelley (composition). [2] He also studied voice in Berlin, taking lessons in 1910 with Alexander Heinemann. [3] He then taught music from 1900 until 1904 at a school in Boonville, Indiana, before going to Connersville to teach elementary and high school music; he stayed there from 1905 until 1909. Miessner has been quoted as saying that "The idle mind is the devil’s workshop. But this is my workshop and I’ll not tolerate an idle mind as long as there’s excitement in music." [1]
One day in 1906, Miessner met three students in the street; they had been suspended from school earlier in the day due to misbehavior. The three were watching a minstrel show, keeping time with their hands while listening. Miessner made a deal with the three boys: he would get them reinstated in school if they, in exchange, would learn to play instruments in a school band which he was at the time planning to form. They agreed; Miessner, for his part, encouraged them to practice by promising them a public concert and uniforms in the school colors. The experiment was a success, and Connersville High School became possessed of the first public high school band in the United States. [1] Miessner received a great deal of exposure for his work in starting the band, which was chosen to perform at a convention of the Northern and Southern Indiana Teacher's Association in 1908. This performance received a notice in School Music, at the time a national publication for music educators, and Miessner's name was made. [1]
Miessner went on to serve in a number of teaching and administrative positions during the remainder of his career. He was the director of the music schools of Milwaukee State Teachers College from 1914 until 1922, and from 1911 until 1924 taught at summer sessions at Northwestern University. He founded the Miessner Institute of Music in Milwaukee in 1924. In the early 1930s he worked with his brother, Benjamin, to invent an instrument called a rhythmicon. Unfortunately for them, Léon Theremin had already developed a similar instrument with the same name. [4] In 1936 he became head of the Department of Music Education at the University of Kansas, where he headed the graduate studies program and remained until 1945. In addition, he co-edited music textbooks for Silver Burdett for forty years and served ten years as president of the Miessner Piano Company in Milwaukee. He also received many honors for his work as an educator, including honorary doctorates from the Cincinnati Conservatory and Chicago Musical College. He was a life member of the Music Educators National Conference, whose president he was from 1923 until 1924; he was also a member of Phi Delta Kappa, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and Pi Kappa Lambda. [1] While in Boonville, he also served as a music director for a number of local organizations, including the Methodist church. [3] In 1986 he was inducted into the Music Educators National Conference Hall of Fame. [1]
Upon his retirement, Miessner returned to Connersville. Upon learning that no music teacher could be found for some of the local schools, he obtained an emergency permit that allowed him to return to teaching for three years, beginning in 1956. He was then told that he would have to take a beginners' course in teaching to retain his permit; feeling that his experience as a teacher should exempt him from such work, he declined. He died in Connersville in 1967. [1]
Miessner is primarily remembered as an educator, but he wrote music as well. Most of his music was composed for choir, but he also wrote songs as well as some pieces for piano. [2] He also wrote pedagogical works for beginning violinists and pianists, and compiled teaching materials about symphonic music and American songs. [3]
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Huntingburg is a city in Patoka Township, Dubois County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 6,362 at the 2020 census, just less than half the size of a neighboring city in Dubois County, Jasper.
Boonville is a city in Boon Township, Warrick County, Indiana, United States. The population was 6,246 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Warrick County.
Otar Vasilisdze Taktakishvili was a prominent Georgian composer, teacher, conductor, and musicologist of the Soviet period. Although in the West Taktakishvili is perhaps best known for his 1968 Sonata for Flute and Piano, his works include two symphonies, four piano concertos, two violin concertos, two cello concertos, and operas. He also wrote several symphonic poems and oratorios, as well as adaptations of Georgian folk songs and a multitude of compositions for instruments and voice.
Fred Hemke, DMA(néFrederick Leroy Hemke Jr.; July 11, 1935 – April 17, 2019) was an American virtuoso classical saxophonist and influential professor of saxophone at Northwestern University. Hemke helped raise the popularity of classical saxophone, particularly among leading American composers and helped raise the recognition of classical saxophone in solo, chamber, and major orchestral repertoire. For a half century, from 1962 to 2012, Hemke was a full-time faculty music educator at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music. In 2002, Hemke was named Associate Dean Emeritus of the School of Music. Hemke retired from Northwestern University in 2012. From the start of his career in the early 1960s, building on the achievements of earlier influential American teachers of classical saxophone — including those of Larry Teal, Joseph Allard, Cecil Leeson, Sigurd Raschèr, and Vincent Abato — Hemke, and a handful of peer American saxophonists — including Eugene Rousseau and Donald Sinta — helped build American saxophone repertoire through composers that included Muczynski, Creston, Stein, Heiden, and Karlins. Journalist and author Michael Segell, in his 2005 book, The Devil's Horn, called Hemke "The Dean of Saxophone Education in America." Hemke died on April 17, 2019.
The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig is a public university in Leipzig. Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn as the Conservatorium der Musik , it is the oldest university school of music in Germany.
Sigma Alpha Iota (ΣΑΙ) is an International Music Fraternity. Formed to "uphold the highest standards of music" and "to further the development of music in America and throughout the world", it continues to provide musical and educational resources to its members and the general public. Sigma Alpha Iota operates its own national philanthropy, Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc. Sigma Alpha Iota is a member of the National Interfraternity Music Council and the Professional Fraternity Association.
The Rhythmicon—also known as the Polyrhythmophone—was an electro-mechanical musical instrument designed and built by Leon Theremin for composer Henry Cowell, intended to reveal connections between rhythms, pitches and the harmonic series. It used a series of perforated spinning disks, similar to a Nipkow disk, to interrupt the flow of light between bulbs and phototoreceptors aligned with the disk perforations. The interrupted signals created oscillations which were perceived as rhythms or tones depending on the speed of the disks. Although it generated both pitches and rhythms, it has often been described as the world's first drum machine.
Eugene Migliaro Corporon is an American conductor, known for his work with wind ensembles and is a scholar of wind / band music repertoire. He is co-editor of two literature catalogues, Wind Ensemble/Band Repertoire (1984) and Wind Ensemble Literature (1975), as well as all ten volumes of the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band Series. He also is co-host on the Inner Game of Music videotape.
Charles C. Knox was an American composer and music educator. He is particularly noted for his music for brass instruments and chamber music, among his over 100 compositions to date.
Will Earhart was a pioneering American music educator.
Richard Franko Goldman was a conductor, educator, author, music critic, and composer.
Edgar Stillman Kelley was an American composer, conductor, teacher, and writer on music. He is sometimes associated with the Indianist movement in American music.
Peter William Dykema was an important force in the growth of the National Association for Music Education, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity, and the music education profession. Dykema was also active in the Music Teachers National Association and the National Education Association Department of Music Education. He also served as 1924-25 chairman of the Kiwanis International Committee on Music. Through these various avenues of involvement, in addition to his work as a composer, author, and educator, he was one of the leading music advocates of his day.
Wilfred Conwell Bain was an American music educator, a university level music school administrator, and an opera theater director at the collegiate level. Bain is widely credited for rapidly transforming to national prominence both the University of North Texas College of Music as dean from 1938 to 1947, and later, Indiana University School of Music as dean from 1947 to 1973. Both institutions are major comprehensive music schools with the largest and second largest enrollments, respectively, of all music schools accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. He was born in Shawville, Quebec, and died in Bloomington, Indiana.
Donald Heins was a Canadian violinist, violist, conductor, organist, composer, and music educator of English birth. He notably founded the first professional orchestra in Ottawa, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, in 1902, serving as its director until 1927. He also served in a variety of positions with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1927–1949, including concertmaster, principal violist, and assistant conductor.
Dall C. Fields was an American bassoonist, composer, and music educator, who for much of his career, was based in and around Chicago. As a performer, he had been a bassoonist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, and later, the Bachman Woodwind Ensemble. As an educator, he taught mostly in the Chicago area, teaching out of his own studio and through affiliations with the Maywood extension of the Chicago Conservatory of Music. He also taught at Yale University and through affiliations with August Bucci (1897–1935), William Johnson of Valparaiso, Indiana, and the Valpo Music House.
Nilo W. Hovey was a clarinetist, composer, conductor, music educator and author of many musical instrument method books.
Benjamin Franklin Miessner was an American radio engineer and inventor. He is most known for his electronic organ, electronic piano, and other musical instruments. He was the inventor of the Cat's whisker detector.
Frances Walker-Slocum was an American educator, pianist, and organist, and the first tenured African-American female professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the first conservatory in the United States to admit black students.
Marion Verhaalen was an American composer, music educator, musicologist, and nun who published books about Latin American composers and music.
