Mills, S(ebastian) B(ach)

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Mills, S(ebastian) B(ach)

Mills, S(ebastian) B(ach), outstanding English pianist; b. Cirencester, March 13, 1838; d. Wiesbaden, Dec. 21, 1898. He played before Queen Victoria at the age of 7. He studied with Cipriani Potter and Sterndale Bennett, and later was a student of Moscheles, Plaidy, Hauptmann, and Rietz at the Leipzig Cons., and finally of Liszt. He played at a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert (Dec. 2, 1858), then went to N.Y., where he obtained a decisive success with the Schumann Piano Concerto, which he performed with the Phil. Soc. on March 26, 1859. He remained in N.Y. until making his last appearance on Nov. 24, 1877. He had a significant and lasting impact upon American pianism through his presentation of first American performances of works by Hiller, Liszt, Moscheles, Reinecke et al.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire