AJ on Music Theory Print

A. J. Potter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Archibald James Potter (22 September 1918 – 5 July 1980) was an Irish composer and teacher, who wrote hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music. Early years Potter was born in Belfast to a Presbyterian family who, oddly, lived on the Falls Road, a republican (Catholic) stronghold. His father was a church organist and piano tuner who was blind since childhood. His mother was, in Potter’s own words, “a raging alcoholic”. The young Potter escaped a rather grim childhood when he went to live with an aunt in Kent, England. Possessed of a good voice and natural musical ability, Potter was accepted as a treble by the world-famous choir of All Saints, Margaret Street. In 1933, after four years as a chorister, he was sent to Clifton College, Bristol. From there he went to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship and studied composition under Vaughan Williams. World War II interrupted Potter’s music education, and he left college to serve with the London Irish Rifles in Europe and the Far East. After the war Potter settled in Dublin, where he continued his studies at Trinity College Dublin, gaining a Doctorate in Music in 1953. A

A. J. Turner

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Augustus John Turner (October 12, 1818 – May 14, 1905), known as “A. J. Turner”, was an American composer, band leader and music professor. He was the first director of the Stonewall Brigade Band of Staunton, Virginia, the oldest continuous community band funded by tax moneys in the United States. They were mustered into the Stonewall Brigade under Stonewall Jackson of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Turner served through the Valley Campaign, the Seven Days Battles, and was at the Battle of Cedar Mountain. Turner was a professor of music at the Wesleyan Female Institute, the Staunton Male Academy, and the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Institute. He also played a part in the temperance movement. Ancestry and early years Augustus John Turner was born on October 12, 1818, in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to Samuel M. Turner and Mahala Johnson Chapman. His father Samuel was a farmer living near the site of Fort Prince. Both Turner’s grandfathers fought in the Revolutionary War. His father Samuel’s father was James Turner, who settled in South Carolina near Coulter’s Ford on the Pacolet River with his father George Henry Turner, after the death of his mother Hannah Middleton in Virg