Endowments; Music--Societies, etc.; Concerts; Pittsburgh (Pa.); Mozart Club (Pittsburgh, Pa.); McCollum, James P.
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
[between 1901 and 1919?]
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 83
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
J. P. McCollum, conductor
MOZART CLUB, THE, of Pittsburgh, was organized in 1878 and incorporated in 1886. Its only conductor for forty years was James P. McCollum. Gradually expanding from a small circle of singers to a large chorus, and from 1886 giving programs only with or chestra or a cappella, the Club covered a large repertoire, including the larger sacred and secular works and a variety of lesser cantatas, etc.,the orchestras assisting including those of Pittsburgh, Boston, Chicago and St. Paul. Almost all the leading soloists of the country appeared with it. The Club also pursued the policy of developing soloists within its own ranks or from Pittsburgh. Its work was greatly aided by the financial support of many public-spirited citizens." [SOURCE: Boyd, Charles N. (Charles Newell), 1875-1937, Waldo Selden Pratt, and George Grove. Grove's Dictionary of Music And Musicians: American Supplement : Being the Sixth Volume of the Complete Work. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920, pp. 300. HathiTrust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b252673. Accessed 2 Oct. 2018.] "Next Monday evening the Mozart Club begins its thirty-second season of concerts. From its beginning the Mozart Club has been under the direction of the eminent Scotch conductor, James P. McCollum, who holds the extraordinary record of being in charge at every concert and nearly every rehearsal in the thirty-one years. The chorus has been at work since the early part of September on two works for presentation at this first concert. Massenet's 'Eve' and Coleridge-Taylor's 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast'. It must be nearly ten years since the Mozart Club presented either of these works, both of which offer a chorus an agreeable variety of effective work. The 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast' is of particular interest to Americans because of its text, and its use of melodies which to some extent, sound familiar to our ears. It was one of the earliest and most successful compositions of the young Afro-English musician and very quickly made a triumphant round of English-singing countries. The Pittsburgh Orchestra will play the accompaniments for the Monday evening concert, and the soloists will be Miss Louise Ormsby, soprano; H. Evan Williams, tenor, and J. Humbird Duffy, baritone. All of these are well known and popular American artists who have been heard here mainly in Mozart Club concerts, and their fitness for the solo parts in the two cantatas is undoubted. In the Coleridge-Taylor work Mr. Williams has the only solo, but it is one of the most effective offerings for tenor that any modern composer has yet put forth. Mr. McCollum reports his chorus, of nearly two hundred voices, in excellent form this year and promises a thoroughly enjoyable concert." [SOURCE: "Music and Musicians." The Index, Vol. 21, No. 1. The Index Company, Pittsburgh, 3 Jul 1909, pp. 28. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=lmlJAQAAMAAJ. Accessed 2 Oct. 2018.]