E.L. Coburn

MENC President 1909-1910

Born 1861

Died April 23, 1920, St. Louis, Missouri

Work:

Music teacher, Boone, Iowa

Music supervisor, St. Louis, Missouri, 1905-1920

Professional Accomplishments:

E.L. Coburn’s colleagues remembered him as an optimistic and caring person, an excellent music supervisor who helped others develop their own talents. After beginning his teaching career in Boone, Iowa, he moved to St. Louis about 1905, serving first as music supervisor at McKinley High School, then as head of the music department. He was a member of the founding group who met in Keokuk in 1907 to establish the Music Supervisors National Conference.

Coburn was best known for his city-wide concerts that combined choral students with professional orchestras. He began these concerts in 1909 with 2,500 students from seventh grade through high school accompanied by the Damrosch Orchestra. The St. Louis Symphony then became involved with the project, and by 1915, Coburn estimated that 6,500 students had sung with the Symphony and 10,000 parents had attended concerts. Included on the programs were works such as The Creation, Aida, and Il Trovatore. In April, 1920, he became ill after one of these programs and died suddenly from a bleeding ulcer at just fifty-nine years of age. Some of his high school students provided music for his funeral, and a friend noted that they reflected his fine work, because they “sang exquisitely without a leader.”

Personal Biography:

Wife, two children (Mary and William)

Quotes:

“It is seen now, as never before, that music is a form of life expression, to deprive the child of which would be to leave him undeveloped and incomplete.”

E. L. Coburn, “Music in the United States for the Last Twenty-Five Years,” Journal of

Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference,

Cincinnati, OH. 3-6 May, 1910, 18.

“I do not like to talk about myself in public, but Mr. Dykema has asked me to give an account of the concert work that has been done under my direction in St. Louis. . . . I was invited by Symphony management to talk before them on the subject of how to interest the public in Symphony music. I suggested, on this occasion, that inasmuch as school children would soon be the adults who would support such organizations, my belief was that the only way to interest them in Symphony music was to play with them rather than at them.”

E. L. Coburn, Journal of Proceedings of the Eighth Meeting of the Music Supervisors

National Conference, Pittsburgh, PA. 22-26 March 1915, 89.

“The argument in favor of elective chorus singing is that in this way a community can best be served. This would be a true if a community could be made musical through listening. History and experience have taught us that neither communities nor nations have become musical in this way.”

E. L. Coburn, Journal of Proceedings of the Eleventh Meeting of the Music Supervisors

National Conference, Evansville, IN. 8-12 April 1918, 137.

Sources Used:

Birge, Edward B. History of Public School Music in the United States, new and expanded

ed. Reston, VA: Music Educators National Conference, 1966.

Coburn, E.L. “Music in the United States in the Last Twenty-Five Years” Journal of

Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the Music Supervisors National Conference,

Cincinnati, OH, 3-6 May 1910, 16-19.

Davis, Jeff. “E.L. Coburn Biography,” MENC Founders of 1907. Available from

http://www.public.asu.edu/~aajth/history/coburn~el/coburn.html; Internet.

Dykema, Peter W. “The Passing of a Friend,” Music Supervisors’ Journal 7, No. 1

(September 1920): 5-6.

Journal of Proceedings of the Eighth Meeting of the Music Supervisors National

Conference, Pittsburgh, PA. 22-26 March 1915.

Journal of Proceedings of the Eleventh Meeting of the Music Supervisors National

Conference, Evansville, IN. 8-12 April 1918, 136-138.

Mark, Michael L., and Charles L. Gary. A History of American Music Education, 2d ed.

Reston, VA: MENC-The National Association for Music Education, 1999.

Submitted by Kaye Ferguson, November 2002