Arthur Whiting

Arthur Whiting (20 June 1861, Cambridge, Massachusetts — 20 July 1936, Beverly, MA) was an American pianist, composer, lecturer and writer, nephew of George E. Whiting (1861—1944), and member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1905). Whiting began studying piano at eight with his mother, later trained on organ by his uncle, George Elbridge. Arthur debuted as a concert pianist circa 1873, when he was only thirteen. He served as a titular organist at All Saints Church in Worcester for three years before enrolling at the New England Conservatory Of Music, where Whiting studied with William H. Sherwood (1854—1911) and George Whitefield Chadwick. Between 1883 and 1885, Arthur Batelle took lessons from Josef Rheinberger at Musikhochschule München in Germany. In 1885, Whiting returned to America and settled back in Boston, where he was associated with the "Second New England School," or New England Classicists, a group of composers influenced by German Romantic tradition: John Knowles Paine (1839—1906), Arthur Foote (1853—1937), George Whitefield Chadwick (1854—1931), Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867—1944), Edward MacDowell (1861—1908), Horatio William Parker (1863—1919), Edgar Stillman-Kelley (1857—1944), and Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867—1972). Around 1895, A.B. Whiting relocated to New York City; he later taught at the Cincinnati College of Music's Organ Department with Theodore Thomas. Between 1907 and 1930, Arthur Whiting traveled across various US universities with his annual cycle of lectures/recitals on chamber music, read at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia University.