Axel Christensen

Axel Waldemar Christensen (March 23, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was an American composer, arranger, publisher, pianist and music instructor. He was the founder of the Christensen School of Popular Music, under which he published various instruction books about the playing of syncopated music. The school enrolled upwards of 500,000 students in its numerous branches across the United States, making it one of the first and most successful examples of standardizing the instruction of popular music. The school also published the music magazine ‘Christensen Ragtime Review’. His formal attire and preference for grand pianos gave him the vaudeville title ‘Czar of Ragtime’. Life and career Axel Christensen was born in 1881 in Chicago, Illinois to Danish parents Charles and Mary Christensen. Playing classical music from an early age, he would first delve into the popular ragtime music in his teenage years. He would marry Reine Annette Swanson in 1903, a marriage that would last until his death. They had one child, Carle Christensen, in 1909. In 1902, Christensen made his first publication, a ragtime arrangement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. The following year, he opened the Christensen