Johns, Clayton

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Johns, Clayton

Johns, Clayton, American pianist, teacher, and composer; b. New Castle, Del., Nov. 24, 1857; d. Boston, March 5, 1932. He studied composition with J.K. Paine (1879-81) and piano and W.H. Sherwood (1879-82) at Harvard Univ., then composition with Kiel at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik (1882-83); also studied piano privately with Rummel in Berlin. He settled in Boston in 1884, where he taught at the New England Con. of Music (1912-16). His most popular work was the Introduction and Fugue for Piano (1899), which was often performed by Josef Hofmann. He also wrote other instrumental works and about 100 songs. He publ, an autobiography, Reminiscences of a Musician (1929) and the didactic The Essentials of Pianoforte Playing (1909). He also ed. From Bach to Chopin (1911).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire