Background
Unseld, Benjamin Carl was born on October 18, 1843 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, United States. Son of John George and Susan (Eaty) Unseld.
Unseld, Benjamin Carl was born on October 18, 1843 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, United States. Son of John George and Susan (Eaty) Unseld.
General education in schools of native place. Took up serious study of music at 21. 1st teacher Doctor Eben Tourjee.
Also studied under Doctor William Mason, James G. Webb, Theodore F. Sewart.
In the early 1860s, he moved to Pennsylvania. Though mostly self-taught, he sang in the choir and accepted a position as organist at the Methodist Church in Columbia, Pennsylvania. B. C. Unseld taught at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, and was the school"s first secretary.
Later he taught at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and was the first principal of the Virginia Normal School of Music.
Unseld and Seward, with Biglow and Main publishers, imported John Curwen"s Tonic Sol-fa and promoted lieutenant The method was never widely received in the United States.
During his lifetime, he worked with the Biglow & Main Company (New York City), Fillmore Music House (Cincinnati, Ohio) and the Lorenz Publishing Company (Dayton, Ohio). In 1911, Unseld moved to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to serve as dean of the new James Doctorate. Vaughan School of Music, one part of that famed entrepreneur"s publishing enterprise.
After 1914 he also served as editor of The Vaughan Family Visitor, the company"s monthly house periodical.
Unseld died in Lawrenceburg but was not buried there. B. C. Unseld was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2004.
Married Sally Helen Rickard, September 6, 1887.