Richard Henry Warren was an American organist and composer.
Background
Richard Henry Warren was born in Albany, N. Y. , the son of George William Warren and Mary Elizabeth (Pease) Warren. His father was a self-taught musician who from 1846 to 1858 had been organist of St. Peter's Church, in Albany, and at the time of his son's birth was filling a two years' engagement at St. Paul's in the same city. In 1860, when the boy was one year of age, the family moved to Brooklyn, N. Y. , where the senior Warren was organist at Holy Trinity Church for ten years. From 1870 until his death in 1902 he played at St. Thomas' Church in New York City. His father was Richard Warren's first teacher.
Education
He studied with Peter A. Schnecker, George Wiegand, and John White, and finally went to Europe where he had lessons with Charles Marie Widor.
Career
While abroad he was invited to appear as guest organist in many cathedrals and churches. In 1877 he obtained in New York his first position as organist in America, at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, and remained there for two years. During the season 1879-80 he played at the Madison Avenue Reformed Episcopal Church, and then became organist at All Souls Unitarian Church from 1880 to 1886. For the next nineteen years (1886 - 1905) he was organist at St. Bartholomew's, and from 1907, at the Church of the Ascension. He was active as a musician until 1921, when he retired to his country home at South Chatham, Massachussets, where he appeared occasionally as a guest organist at the First Congregational Church. From 1886 to 1895 he was conductor of the Church Choral Society, an organization founded by the elder J. P. Morgan. As director of this chorus Warren gave first performances of a number of new works, among them Horatio Parker's "Hora Novissima, " produced for the first time by the Society in 1893 at the Church of St. Zion and Timothy. In the summer of 1905 he conducted a series of summer orchestra concerts at St. Nicholas Garden, New York. He also appeared as guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic Society and the Philadelphia Symphony. At the time of his death, at South Chatham, Warren was a widower.
Achievements
Interests
In the years of his retirement he had opportunity to enjoy his hobby, the operation of a small printing press.
Connections
He married Helen Corbin Hurd in 1886. They had no children.