Background
Carpenter was born in Park Ridge, Illinois on February 28, 1876, and raised in a musical household.
Carpenter was born in Park Ridge, Illinois on February 28, 1876, and raised in a musical household.
John Alden Carpenter received basic music training with John Knowles Paine at Harvard University (A. B. 1897, M. A. 1922). He also studied abroad a few months with Sir Edward Elgar and did further theoretical study with Bernard Ziehn in Chicago.
Carpenter wrote symphonic and chamber music, ballets, many songs (the Gitanjali cycle is his best known group), and other choral and instrumental works. He is claimed as an "Americanist" composer. But the deepest impetus for his music came from France. His music, refined and skillfully written, influenced by French impressionism, often conveys the spirit and the scenes of American life in such works as the orchestral suite Adventures in a Perambulator (1914) and the ballets Krazy Kat (Chicago, 1921) and Skyscrapers (New York, 1926).
A Spanish flavor and jazz, frequently elements in his music, are both found in Patterns (1932) for orchestra.
Other important works are his ballet The Birthday of the Infanta (Chicago, 1919), a violin concerto (1937), a concertino for piano and orchestra (1915), songs, symphonies, and chamber music.
John Alden Carpenter was made a Knight of the French Legion of Honor in 1921
John Alden Carpenter was married to Rue Winterbotham and to Ellen Waller Borden.
After leaving Harvard in 1897 he entered his father's business and, like his contemporaries Charles Ives and Wallace Stevens, combined a successful business career with creative activity.
