Gottlieb Graupner

NOTOC Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner (6 October 1767 – 16 April 1836) was a musician, composer, conductor, educator and publisher. Born in Hanover, Germany, he played oboe in Joseph Haydn’s orchestra in London. After moving to the United States in the 1790s, he co-founded the Philharmonic Society (ca. 1810–1825) and the Handel and Haydn Society (est. 1815) in Boston, Massachusetts. Some historians call Graupner “the father of Negro songs”, based on the reminiscences of performer Charles T. White (1821-1891). One historian of jazz writes: “In 1795…Graupner…arrived in Charleston, Virginia, from Hanover, Germany, listened to banjo music and Negro songs, and learned. In 1799, donning blackface, he introduced himself as ‘The Gay Negro Boy’ in an interlude between acts at the Federal Street Theatre in Boston. This was the beginning of Negro minstrels and minstrelsy.” According to another account, thereafter “he specialized in popularizing Negro songs.” However, more recent historians have cast doubt upon these claims. In 1801, with fellow musicians Philip Trajetta and François Mallet, he founded a music academy in Boston, called the American Conservatorio of Boston. It was th