Background
He received his first musical instruction from his father before enrolling in the New England Conservatory in 1889, studying piano with Otto Bendix and music theory with Percy Goetschius.
He received his first musical instruction from his father before enrolling in the New England Conservatory in 1889, studying piano with Otto Bendix and music theory with Percy Goetschius.
Brother of late Ethelbert Nevin). General education at Sewickley Academy, Pennsylvania, and Park University, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Musical education, North.E. Conservatory of Music, Boston, and under professors Klindworth and Boise, Berlin, Germany.
Doctor of Music, University of Pittsburgh, 1935.
Along with Charles Wakefield Cadman, Blair Fairchild, Charles Sanford Skilton, and Arthur Farwell, among others, he was one of the leading Indianist composers of the early twentieth century. Completing his work there, in 1893 he traveled to Europe, there receiving instruction in piano from Karl Klindworth and Ernst Jedliczka, and studying composition with Oits Boise and Engelbert Humperdinck. In 1897 returned to the United States, and spend time teaching and conducting as well as writing music
Some of his early pieces were published under the pseudonym "Arthur Dale".
In 1903 and 1904, he spent the summers living with the Blackfoot tribe in Montana, using the opportunity to study their music and folklore. He soon became recognized as an expert on Indian culture, and his interest in the Blackfoot led to the composition of an opera, Poia, on the subject of one of their legends.
Between 1911 and 1914, worked in Virginia, also spending time in New Hampshire conducting at the MacDowell Colony. At the start of World War I, he took a teaching post at the University of Kansas, but gave it up when the United States entered the war in order to direct the army band and choirs at Camp Grant in Illinois.
Post-war, he moved to New York after spending time in Tennessee.
He suffered from poor health in the last two decades of his life. During this time he also traveled to Paris. died in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, in 1943. That same year, Theodore Roosevelt invited to the White House to give an illustrated talk on his work, but further interest from the American musical establishment was not forthcoming. composed numerous other works besides Poia.
"s other output includes a number of other dramatic works, some pieces for chorus, and some chamber music, as well as four works for orchestra.
He was elected an honorary member of the Alpha Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, the national fraternity for men in music, at the New England Conservatory c. 1916-1917.