Bertram Shapleigh

Bertram Lincoln Shapleigh (15 January 1871 – 2 July 1940) was an American composer, heavily interested in the culture of Asia. Education He studied composition with G.E. Whiting and George Whitefield Chadwick at the New England Conservatory; graduating in 1891. He continued his studies with Edward MacDowell in the United States, and gave piano recitals and accompanied singers in the Boston area. He also studied in France and Germany. A man of wide interests, he entered the Vermont Medical College, graduating with an MD degree in 1893. Career He became a lecturer on the arts, but a developing concern with South Asian music that led him to give his attention fully to music and to composition. He played the piano and cello, and gave lecture-recitals on music history, Eastern music and Wagner’s operas. In 1898 he left the United States for Europe, living in Cologne and Brussels, eventually settling in Longfield, Kent in his home he named “Weird Wood”. He became an editor for Breitkopf & Härtel. However, after his house, with his library of 7000 volumes, had been destroyed by fire, he returned to the USA in 1917, settling in Chicago and then Washington DC, to serve as an adviser to Brei