W. H. Neidlinger

William Harold Neidlinger USA 1863-1924. Born at New York, NY, he studied with organists Dudley Buck and C C Muller (1880-90) in New York. He played the organ at St Michael’s Church in New York City. He also conducted the Amphion Male Chorus and the Cecilia Women’s Chorus in Brooklyn, and the Treble Clef Club and Mannheim Glee Club in Philadelphia, PA. He taught in the music department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts & Sciences. He went on to study with E Dannreuther in London (1896-98) then worked in Paris as a singing teacher until 1901. In 1897 he married Alice Adelaide Maxwell Sypher, and they had a son, Harold. Returning to American in 1901, he settled in Chicago, IL, where for several years he was one of the prominent singing teachers. He wrote music for a religious mass, He published a comic opera, Ulysses” in 1898, another opera, “Sweet Anne Page” (1903), a cantata, “Prayer, praise, and promise”. two song books, “Songs of the campfire girls of America”, and “Small songs for small singers” (1896), a standard work for kindergartens, that was so successful that he.became interested in child psychology and nearly abandoned music. He even established a school for handicapped children in East Orange, NJ, where he taught his theories of musical pedagogy and speech and vocal therapy. He wrote several secular songs and edited a number of vocal songbooks, especially for children. He was a theorist on musical methods and education. He died at Orange, NJ. He was an author, composer, and lyricist.

John Perry