Carl Venth

Carl Venth (February 16, 1860 – January 29, 1938) was a German-American composer, violinist, conductor, music educator, and scholar. He was a leading classical music figure in Texas in the first half of the twentieth century and was one of the early music directors of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Early life and education Venth was born in Cologne, Kingdom of Prussia, the son of Carl Venth and Friderika von Turkowitz. He began learning the violin at age 9 with his father. Carl studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm-Gymnasium; at the Cologne Conservatory, where he learned the violin with George Japha and composition with Ferdinand Hiller, Gustav Jensen, and Otto Klauwell; and at the Brussels Conservatory, where he studied violin with Henryk Wieniawski and from which he graduated in 1877. Career In 1878 Venth was appointed concertmaster of the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra and of the Flemish Opera in Brussels; in 1879 he assumed the same post with the Offenbach Comic Opera of Paris. He made his solo debut in 1878 with the Utrecht Symphony, followed by a concert tour of the Netherlands in 1879 (together with Alfred Patzig and Luise Wandersleb-Patzig, 16 concerts in 12 cities) and of the Unite