Angelo Read

Read, Angelo

Angelo (McCallum) Read. Teacher, composer, organist, b near St Catharines, Canada West (Ontario), 22 May 1854, d Port Maitland, Ont, 15 Jul 1926. His early musical training took place in St Catharines and in the USA. In the early 1880s he spent several years in Leipzig, where his teachers included Robert Papperitz, Carl Reinecke, Alfred Richter, and Salomon Jadassohn. He then spent a year in Vienna studying Leschetizky's piano methods.

By 1889 Read had become organist at St Thomas Church and music teacher at Ridley College, St Catharines, but in 1894 he settled in Buffalo. For many years he divided his teaching activities between Ridley College and d'Youville College of Buffalo, also making a name for himself as a conductor of choirs in both cities. He was music director of the Buffalo Cons in the early 1920s.

Read was one of the earliest Anglo-Canadian composers. Among his major works are the Christmas cantata A Song of the Nativity, Opus 12 (G. Schirmer 1899); the dramatic cantata David's Lament, Opus 15 (ibid 1902); the Lenten cantata It Is Finished, Opus 17; a Mass in B flat; and several concert overtures. The publishers of his shorter works for piano, voice, church choir, etc, include Anglo-Canadian, Ditson, Presser, G. Schirmer, Suckling, and Whaley Royce. He also composed a 'Canadian Flag Song' (Anglo-Canadian 1914). In 1886 he read an essay on 'The encouragement of Canadian composition' before the Canadian Society of Musicians. He wrote on 'The North American Indian and music' for Musical America (vol 6, no. 9, 1907).