'Jeanette Thurber' (
January 29,
1850 –
January 2,
1946) was amongst the first major patrons of
classical music in the
United States.
Educated in
Paris, Thurber was married to a millionaire grocery wholesaler. In the 1880s she founded the
American Opera Company and the
National Conservatory of Music, both in New York. In 1892, she was responsible for bringing the
Czech composer
AntonÃn Dvořák to the United States to head the latter institution. It was her ambition to found a uniquely American school of classical music composition.
Thurber died in
Bronxville, New York, in 1946.
External links
★ "
On the Money: New Music Funding in the United States", an excerpt concerning Jeanette M. Thurber