Background
Kerker, Gustave Adolph was born on February 28, 1857 in Herford, Germany. Son of Gustave Adolph and Elizabeth K. (both parents musicians).
Kerker, Gustave Adolph was born on February 28, 1857 in Herford, Germany. Son of Gustave Adolph and Elizabeth K. (both parents musicians).
He became a musical director for Broadway theatre productions and wrote the music for a series of operettas and musicals produced on Broadway and in the West End. His most famous musical was The Belle of New New York His family emigrated to the United States. in 1867, settling in Louisville, Kentucky.
Kerker played in pit orchestras at local theatres and then began to conduct.
His early operetta, Cadets, toured the South in 1879. Kerker then moved to New York City, where he was engaged as the principal conductor at the Casino Theatre.
There, he began to add his own songs into the scores of foreign operettas, notably Charles Lecocq"s The Pearl of Pekin, since these works had no effective copyright in the United States. Kerker"s first complete operetta in New York was Castles in the Air in 1890. He wrote over twenty shows, the most successful of which were the London musical burlesque Little Christopher Columbus (1893), and the international musical hit The Belle of New York ().
Other notable musicals included An American Beauty (), The Girl from Up There (1901), Winsome Winnie (), The Tourists (), and Fascinating Flora ().
Kerker was married twice: first to Rose Keene whose stage name was Rose Leighton (1884) and second to Mattie B. Rivenberg (married June 5, 1908), a show girl in the musical Nearly a Hero who was 30 years his junior. Kerker died following an "attack of apoplexy" at his home on 565 West 169th Street in New York City at the age of 66.
He was one of the nine founding members of American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1914.
Married Mattie Belle Rivenburg, June 1, 1908.