Marion Osgood
Marion G. Osgood (ca. 1865–after 1924)[1] was a US violinist, composer, and orchestra conductor. Her company, the Marion Osgood's Ladies Orchestra, was the first ladies' orchestra organized for professional work in the US, and she was one of the leading solo violinists in the country.
Biography
Marion G. Osgood was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Her father was associated as a teacher with Lowell Mason, and her mother, Mary A. Osgood, was an author and music composer.[2] George L. Osgood, a Boston musician, was her cousin, and her brother was Professor Fletcher Osgood, elocutionist. She began her musical life as a child, coming from a musical and scholarly family.[3]
Osgood worked as a violin teacher in Boston and was one of the leading solo violinists in the US. She composed and published a number of vocal and instrumental pieces, was a scholarly writer regarding art, and met with local success as a writer of short stories in romantic fiction. Osgood organized and conducted the ladies' orchestra which bore her name. This company was established by her in 1884, was composed wholly of women artists, numbered 30 pieces, and was thoroughly organized with brass and wood winds, strings, and tympana. This company was the first ladies' orchestra for professional work in the US;[3] it existed for about ten years.[4] Among her many published works are a "Fantaisie Caprice", an album of descriptive pieces for violin and piano, and the song "Loving and Loved".[2]
References
This article incorporates text from a work in the public domain: Illustrated American Publishing Company's The Illustrated American (1890)- This article incorporates text from a work in the public domain: F. E. Willard's A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (1893)
- ↑ Birth date guessed from date of establishment of her orchestra. Death date based on handbill listing activities for 1923–24. See "Miss Marion G. Osgood."
- 1 2 Willard 1893, p. 550.
- 1 2 Illustrated American Publishing Company 1890, p. 313.
- ↑ Handy 1998, p. 24-25.
Bibliography
- Handy, D. Antoinette (1998). Black Women in American Bands and Orchestras. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-3419-4.
- Illustrated American Publishing Company (1890). The Illustrated American. 3 (Public domain ed.). Illustrated American Publishing Company.
- Willard, Frances Elizabeth (1893). A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton.
External links
Media related to Marion Osgood at Wikimedia Commons