Edith Noyes Porter (March 26, 1875 – died after 1945) 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 George Whitefield Chadwick (November 13, 1854 – April 4, 1931) was an American composer. Along with John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what is called the Se ...

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 The MacDowell Clubs in the United States were established at the turn of the twentieth century to honor internationally recognized American composer Edward MacDowell. They became part of a broader social movement to promote music and other art forms ...

, 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 Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versaill ...

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 Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popul ...

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