Hans Gram (composer)

Hans Gram (1754-1804) was a Danish composer and musician who emigrated to the United States in the early 1780s. In Boston, Massachusetts, he served as organist of the Brattle Street Church, and as a music teacher.[1] He lived in Charlestown;[2] and in Boston on Belknap's Lane[3] and Common Street.[4] His music "was performed at the funeral of John Hancock."[5] He died in Boston in 1804.[6][7] In 1810 a "Hans Gram Musical Society" formed in Fryeburg, Maine.[8][9]

  1. ^ One of his students, "born blind and but 15 years of age," played organ at the Universal Meeting House. Columbian Centinel, 05-02-1792
  2. ^ Columbian Centinel, 02-18-1795
  3. ^ Boston Directory. 1798
  4. ^ Boston Directory. 1800, 1803
  5. ^ "According to a manuscript note by Oscar Sonneck at the Library of Congress." Gillian B. Anderson. "The Funeral of Samuel Cooper." New England Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1977)
  6. ^ "Died, in this town, after a lingering illness, Hans Gram, Esq. formerly of Copenhagen..." The Repertory (Boston), 05-08-1804
  7. ^ "...Though he possessed a peculiar eccentricity of character, yet he had virtues to imitate, and talents to admire ... his ambitions, usefulness, and talents, became obscured -- and, as monuments erected to human honor and glory decay by the violence of storms ... he gradually mouldered away. Alas! how unstable is human knowledge and worth!" Boston Centinel, reprinted in: Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 05-11-1804
  8. ^ Bray, Oliver. An Oration on Music pronounced at Fryeburg, before the Hans Gram Musical Society on their First Anniversary, October 10, 1811. Portland, 1812.
  9. ^ Massachusetts Register. 1813, 1816, 1817