Harley Hamilton (March 8, 1861May 14, 1933) was an American
conductor
Conductor or conduction may refer to:
Music
* Conductor (music), a person who leads a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra.
* ''Conductor'' (album), an album by indie rock band The Comas
* Conduction, a type of structured free improvisation ...
,
violinist and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
. He was the founder and first conductor of the LA Women's Orchestra in 1893 and of the LA Symphony in 1897. Hamilton was one of the first symphony American directors in those years, when most conductors were born and trained abroad.
Hamilton was born in 1861 in
Kenwood, New York
Kenwood, New York is a hamlet in Madison County, New York, near Oneida, New York and Sherrill, New York. Oneida Creek is the boundary separating Madison and Oneida Counties. Kenwood, west of Oneida Creek, includes, the Oneida Community Mansion Ho ...
, to Susan C. Williams and Henry W. Burnham. He was a member of the
Oneida Community in New York, which his parents joined in 1848, until the Community dissolved in 1881. Shortly before his mother's death, he was adopted by Erastus Hapgood Hamilton (a leading Community member and architect of the
Oneida Community Mansion House The Oneida Community Mansion House is a historic house and museum that was once the home of the Oneida Community, a religiously-based socialist Utopian group led by John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes and his followers moved to the site in Oneida from Putne ...
; now
Museum, from whom he took his name. He was trained as a violinist and conductor (by Oneida Community member and bandleader Charles Joslyn). He worked as a printer and it is believed that his stepfather sent him to study at the
New York College of Music, where he graduated. In 1881, when the Community dissolved, he started traveling as a member of a minstrel group arriving in Los Angeles in 1883. He worked in Los Angeles both as a printer and musician, with several experiences as director and a member of choirs, bands and orchestras. He worked with both amateur and professional orchestras.
Hamilton formed the LA Women's Orchestra in 1893 and the LA Symphony in 1897. Both became quite popular and contributed to the development of symphonic music in the Los Angeles area. He resigned from both in 1913, probably due to advancing deafness.
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He died of apoplexy (stroke) in 1933.
He is buried at the
Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California
Find A Grave Reference.
Notes
References
1861 births
1933 deaths
American male violinists
American classical violinists
American conductors (music)
American male conductors (music)
19th-century conductors (music)
New York College of Music alumni
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
19th-century American musicians
Male classical violinists
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