Born in Portland, ME, Jan 9, 1839
Died in Cambridge, MA, April 25, 1906
- Paine’s Oxford Music Online article summarize his two big accomplishments: “He was the first native-born American to win acceptance as a composer of large-scale concert music, and one of the first to be named professor of music in an American university (Harvard).”
- Paine was an organist, pianist, teacher, and composer. In his youth he studied with Hermann Kotschmar, a German organist who emigrated to Maine. (The municipal concert organ at Portland City Hall is named after Kotschmar.)
- Paine also studied in Germany, where he was affected by the Bach renaissance then in progress. He brought this influence with him when he returned to America as an organist and teacher.
- Paine taught at Harvard from 1873-1905 and helped make Harvard’s music program a model for American universities. His many students included John Alden Carpenter, Arthur Foote, and Carl Ruggles.
- Paine was a charter member of the American Guild of Organists.1
Biography from the Library of Congress
Biography from Harvard Magazine
Sources
- Kenneth C. Roberts and John C. Schmidt, “Paine, John Knowles,” Grove Music Online (October 16, 2013), accessed April 28, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002253739.