Dickinson, Clarence

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Dickinson, Clarence

Dickinson, Clarence, distinguished American organist, pedagogue, and composer; b. Lafayette, Ind., May 7, 1873; d. N.Y., Aug. 2, 1969. After training at Miami Univ in Oxford, Ohio, and at Northwestern Univ. in Chicago, he studied in Berlin and Paris, his principal mentors being Moszkowski (piano), Guilmant (organ), and Pierne (composition). He was organist at St. James’s Episcopal Church in Chicago before settling in N.Y. in 1909 as organist at the Brick (Presbyterian) Church; in 1912 he became prof, of church music at the Union Theological Seminary, where he founded its School of Sacred Music in 1928 and served as its director until 1945. With his wife, the writer Helen Adell Dickinson, he publ. the book Excursions in Musical History (1917) and ed. a valuable collection of Moravian anthems (1954). He ed. the influential series Historical Recitals for Organ (50 numbers) and a hymnal for the Presbyterian Church (1933), and publ. Technique and Art of Organ Playing (1922). Among his compositions were the opéras The Medicine Man and Priscilla, the Storm King Symphony for Organ and Orch. (1921), much sacred music, including various anthems, and many organ pieces.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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