Jeannette Thurber

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Jeannette Thurber, around 1883

Jeannette Thurber (born January 29, 1850 in Delhi as Jeannette Meyers , New York ; † January 2, 1946 in Bronxville , New York ) was an American music patron as well as the founder and president of the National Conservatory of Music of America .

Life

Jeannette Meyers was the daughter of the Danish immigrant Henry Meyers, a well-known violinist, and his wife Annamarie Coffin Price. She later studied at the Conservatoire de Paris . At the age of nineteen, Jeannette Meyers married millionaire Francis Beattie Thurber on September 15, 1869 in New York City . The marriage, which all reports said was a happy one, had two sons.

Jeannette Thurber in her office, 1905

In 1884 Mrs. Thurber founded the National Conservatory of Music of America in Manhattan and a year later the American Opera Company , where young American talents, including those with black skin, were to be trained. In 1884 she financed the first Wagner Festival and the debut of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in New York City .

The music-loving lady wanted to help her school break through with a famous teacher to promote a national American art idiom . In 1891 she submitted to the Bohemian composer Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) a financially and artistically tempting two-year contract with an annual eight-month activity as a composition teacher and orchestra conductor. After a long hesitation, the composer accepted the offer a year later. Aside from homesickness, Dvořák sometimes had financial panic because Mrs. Thurber's husband, a former millionaire, was close to bankruptcy and Mrs. Thurber was behind on her fees. Nevertheless, he finally extended his contract in May 1894 and returned to New York after an extensive home leave.

literature

  • Emanuel Rubin: Jeannette Meyers Thurber and the National Conservatory of Music. American Music, 1990, ISSN  0734-4392

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Thurber, Jeannette
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyers, Jeannette; Thurber, Jeanette Meyers
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American patron of music and founder and president of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Delhi , New York
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1946
Place of death Bronxville , New York