Colleges

Postcard of Presbyterian College (formerly Charlotte Female Institute), which was located on College Street between Ninth and Tenth Streets. 

Dr. Aloys Bidez took over as head of the Female Institute in 1878 and soon the Gounod Club was founded as Charlotte’s next choral enterprise, which broadened Charlotte’s horizons by inviting the Mendelssohn quartette club of Boston to the city.  After the D’Oyly Carte company performed “The Pirates of Penzance” at the Opera House in 1881 the Gounod Club responded with its own performance. 

Once again musical leadership at the Female Institute took Charlotte’s classical music achievements to a new height with Carl Gaertner, a graduate of the Royal High School of Music in Berlin and the National Conservatory of music in Philadelphia.  Under his guidance the Philharmonic Society was established and continued under the direction of Joseph Maclean.  This chorus became the backbone for Charlotte’s first Music Festival of June 1890.

Teachers and singing clubs

Local female colleges had a major influence on the development of Charlotte’s classical music scene, starting in the mid nineteenth century with the forbears of Presbyterian College and continuing well into the twentieth century when Presbyterian moved to fashionable Myers Park to become Queens College.  Following the dictates of the time female colleges of the nineteenth century stressed musical accomplishment as a significant part of a genteel education.  They often sought out prestigious music teachers to head up their music departments.  Though turn over was often high in the profession and temperaments dramatic, these figures became the pioneers of classical music among Charlotte’s elite.

 “Charlotte Female Institute” had a music department of between three and six teachers in 1857, who trained the students in voice, guitar, melodeon, piano and chorus.  They were led by a series of professors, most of whom were of foreign birth, including Albrecht Baumann who joined the institute in 1863 and started the first known community choir in Charlotte, the Charlotte Glee Club.[1]  Such clubs and choral groups came and went, some instigated for particular events or benefits, and others more long term such as the St. Cecelia Choral Society.  

Von Meyerhoff followed Baumann at the Female Institute, but it was local music teacher Robert Phifer who headed up the Glee Club and started a German inspired chorus called Harmonia, following the German tradition of Mannerchore.[2]  Their performances were usually an occasion for a good dance.  Bessie Dewey, one of the most prominent amateur musicians of Charlotte, joined Phifer in 1875 to create the “Amateur Musical Society”.[3]  Dewey was on the music faculty of the Charlotte Female Institute and choir director /organist at First Presbyterian Church, though locally she was probably known just as well for being Charlotte’s first head librarian, illustrating the tight knit society of late nineteenth century Charlotte.[4]

Elizabeth College and the Gerard School of Music

The late 1890’s saw two new developments in Charlotte’s college landscape, both of which impacted Charlotte’s classical music.  The Female Institute moved to a new building on College Street between Ninth and Tenth Streets in 1896 and became the Presbyterian College For Women.  A large auditorium there provided another opportunity for a concert venue in the city.  At about the same time, Elizabeth College opened on the edge of town at the end of a lane extending from East Trade Street, which later became Elizabeth Avenue.  Reflecting the fashions of the time music was as significant at Elizabeth as it was at Presbyterian and Charlotte now had two institutions impacting the quality of classical performances on city stages.  At Elizabeth College the music department had the luxury of a separate building,  “The Gerard Conservatory of Music.”

In 1903 the Elizabeth College Choral Society was organized to prepare and perform large oratorios and cantatas under the leadership of Harry Zehm.  Their success could be measured by the crowds that overflowed their auditorium and the high praise in local newspapers.  After the 1909 Music Festival the Charlotte Observer attributed the success of the event to Zehm:

“In all his work of a public nature he has earned the support of the music lovers and music producers of the city, and it is only necessary to the complete success of any local musical undertaking to secure his services in the capacity of director.  His musical education and training has been the most complete and attainable in the world today, and his mastery of technique is probably unsurpassed in the South.  His value to the city, both as a musician and as a progressive, active citizen, is admitted on all sides.”[1]

Guillermo S. De Roxlo

Guillermo De Roxlo was typical of the extraordinary music teachers who left their imprint on Charlotte’s classical music.  He was a Spanish born conductor and composer who made Charlotte his home and who was responsible for founding the Symphony Orchestra in 1932.  Read the details inside his Conservatory of Music Flyer and you will get a flavor of his personality.