Charles Balmer

Charles Balmer (September 21, 1817 – December 15, 1892), pseudonyms: Charles Remlab, T. van Berg, Alphonse Leduc, Charles Lange, Henry Werner, August Schumann, T. Meyer, F. B. Rider, was a German-American violinist, pianist, organist, composer, conductor, choir director, concert organizer, and music publisher in St. Louis, where, as part of the first generation of German emigrants to the USA, he was part to the musical life of Missouri in the second half of the 19th century. Life Karl Balmer grew up as the eldest son of Gottfried Balmer (died 1846) and his wife Eva, née Heyse (died 1875), in a wealthy, educated family in Mühlhausen, Thuringia. Balmer showed musical talent from an early age and was taken by his father to Göttingen for further musical education, presumably with Heinrich Wilhelm Jacobi. At the age of nine, he received a prize from Louis Spohr for playing a work by Spohr. At ten, he played first violin in the orchestra. At sixteen, he was assistant to the conductor. In 1836, his father emigrated with the family in the USA to St. Louis, Missouri. Charles Balmer himself headed first to New Orleans, to make use of his musical skills there. He then spent two years in Mobil