Edith Rowena Noyes Greene (March 26, 1875 – June 25, 1956) was an American composer, music educator, clubwoman, and pianist, based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Early life

Edith Rowena Noyes was born in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, the daughter of Charles Claudius Noyes and Jeanette Mabel Pease Noyes. Her mother was better known as Boston contralto singer Jeanette Noyes Rice. Edith Noyes studied piano with

Edward MacDowell Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites ''Woodland Sketches'', ''Sea Pieces'' and ''Ne ...

and composition with George Whitefield Chadwick.

Career

Edith Noyes began publishing her works while she was a teenager. She composed songs, hymns, instrumental works for piano and violin, an operetta, ''Last Summer'', and an opera, ''Osseo''. ''Last Summer'' was produced in 1900 as a benefit for the Quincy Hospital. She also taught piano in Boston. In 1895, Noyes started the first MacDowell Club, a music performance and appreciation club in Boston, named as a tribute to her piano teacher. She was founder (in 1911) and president of the city's Music Lovers' Club, and was a member of the Chromatic Musical Club. Edith Noyes Greene promoted the work of disabled "cowboy" painter Floyd Niles Walser. In 1929, she hosted a weekly radio show highlighting Boston musicians and events. In 1933, she directed a concert benefiting the Peabody Home for Crippled Children.

Personal life

Edith Noyes married educator Henry Whitcomb Porter in 1898. They had a son, John Whitcomb Porter, and divorced in 1908. She married again, to fellow pianist Roy Goddard Greene, in 1909. On the Greenes' wedding trip to Europe in 1909, they stayed with Ignacy Jan Paderewski in Switzerland and she studied with conductor

Emil Paur Emil Paur (July 19, 1855 – June 7, 1932) was an Austrian orchestra conductor. Biography Paur was born in Czernowitz, Austria, now Chernivtsi, Ukraine, to a Romanian family, and trained in Vienna before working as a conductor in Kassel, ...

. Roy Greene died in 1946, and Edith Noyes Greene was listed in his death notice as his survivor. Her house is included in historical tours of Framingham.

References

External links

* Rebecca Hunt
"Women Composers in Turn of the Century Boston"
''Boston Public Library'' (March 1, 2019). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Noyes Porter, Edith 1875 births Year of death missing People from Framingham, Massachusetts American composers American pianists