author
Louis Adolphe Coerne
1870–1922
An American composer, conductor, and teacher whose career linked concert music, church music, and musical scholarship. He is especially remembered for his opera Zenobia and for writing one of the earliest Harvard Ph.D. theses in music.
1 Audiobook
The Evolution of Modern Orchestration
by Louis Adolphe Coerne
About the author
Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1870, Louis Adolphe Coerne studied at Harvard under John Knowles Paine and also trained at the Stuttgart Conservatory in Germany. He built a varied career as a composer, organist, conductor, and teacher, working in cities including Buffalo, Columbus, and Boston.
Coerne wrote orchestral, choral, organ, and piano music, but his name is most often associated with the grand opera Zenobia. His book The Evolution of Modern Orchestration grew out of work accepted by Harvard for a Ph.D. in music, noted at the time as a milestone for the university.
Alongside composing, he was active in musical education and church music, helping shape American musical life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He died in Boston in 1922, leaving behind a body of work that reflects both academic rigor and a broad practical life in music.