Biography
Benjamin Carr (September 12, 1768 – May 24, 1831) was an American composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher. Born in London, he studied organ with Charles Wesley and composition with Samuel Arnold. In 1793 he travelled to Philadelphia with a stage company, and a year later went with the same company to New York, where he stayed until 1797. Later that year he moved to Philadelphia, where he became a prominent member of the city’s musical life. He was "decidedly the most important and prolific music publisher in America during the 1790s (as well as one of its most distinguished composers), conducting, in addition to his Philadelphia business, a New York branch from 1794 to 1797, when it was acquired by James Hewitt".
He was well known as a teacher of keyboard and singing, and he served as organist and choirmaster at St Augustine's Catholic Church (1801–31) and at St Peter's Episcopal Church (1816–31). In 1820 he was one of the principal founders of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, and he is known as the "Father of Philadelphia Music". Mrs. French, who had achieved a degree of fame as a singer, was one of his students.
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Carr's best known orchestral work was the Federal Overture (1794), composed for theatrical audiences. He published many of his own art songs, and was perhaps the first American composer to set a Shakespeare text to music, and his setting of Scott's Hymn to the Virgin (1810) is generally considered one of the finest early American songs.
His piano music includes shorter sonatas, rondos and variation forms; much of it was written for pedagogical purposes, although a few works are more technically advanced. He also wrote several important pedagogical works, including the Lessons and Exercises in Vocal Music (c.1811) and The Analytical Instructor for the Piano Forte (1826).
Benjamin Carr was one of the founding members of The Musical Fund Society.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.