Ernest Schelling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernest Schelling (26 July 1876 - 8 December 1939) was an American pianist, composer, and conductor.

Born in Belvedere, New Jersey, Ernest Henry Schelling was a child prodigy. His first teacher was his father. He entered the Academy of Music in Philadelphia at age 4. At age 7 Schelling traveled to Europe to study. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. While in Europe he worked with many great masters including Goetschius, Huber, Barth, Moszkowski and Leschetizky.

Schelling was the first conductor of the Young People's Concerts of the New York Philharmonic. The first concert was held March 27, 1924. The concerts were designed to encourage the love of music in children. They combined the orchestra's performance with a lecture about one aspect or another of the orchestra or the music itself with a picture or demonstration, so that children were exposed to a variety of stimuli. The concerts were highly appreciated by children, as well as their parents. Schelling held these concerts in New York, and also took them on the road. Such cities as Philadelphia, London, Rotterdam and Los Angeles hosted them.

His first wife was Lucie Howe Draper, whom he married in 1905; she died in 1938.

His second wife, whom he married in August 1939, when she was 21 and he was 63, was Helen Huntington "Peggy" Marshall, the stepddaughter of the philanthropist Brooke Astor and a niece of Vincent Astor.

Ernest Schelling died at his home in New York City.