author
John Tasker Howard
1890–1964
A pioneering writer on American music, he helped bring the country’s musical history to a wider public through books, lectures, and radio. Best known for Our American Music, he spent decades documenting composers and traditions that earlier histories often overlooked.
1 Audiobook
Deems Taylor
by John Tasker Howard
About the author
Born in Brooklyn on November 30, 1890, John Tasker Howard became one of the early major historians of music in the United States. He studied at Williams College and later with composers including Howard Brockway and Mortimer Wilson, building a background that supported his work as a composer, lecturer, editor, and critic.
Howard is especially remembered for Our American Music, published in 1931, an early broad history of music in the United States. He also wrote extensively on Stephen Foster and other American subjects, and his career included work in music publishing, journalism, and radio, where he helped popular audiences engage with the story of American music.
He died on November 20, 1964. His papers and research collections, preserved in libraries and archives, reflect how much of his life was devoted to recording and interpreting America’s musical past.