Hawkins, Micah

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Hawkins, Micah

Hawkins, Micah, American composer; b. Head of the Harbor, near Stony Brook, N.Y., Jan. 1, 1777; d. N.Y., July 29, 1825. In 1798 he settled in N.Y.C, where he workedas a carriage builder, grocer, and innkeeper. He was also a member of amateur musicgroups, such as the Euterpian and Apollo societies. He wrote the dialect song “Backside Albany” (1815), which became notably successful, and “Massa Georgee Washington and General LaFayette,” to celebrate Lafayette’s visit to the U.S. in 1824. His opera, The Saw-Mill or A Yankee Trick (1824), is the earliest work of its kind by an American on an American subject.

Bibliography

O. Wegelin, M. K and The Saw-Mill (N.Y., 1917).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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Hawkins, Micah

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