Frederick Converse

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Frederick Shepherd Converse (b. January 5, 1871, Newton, Massachusetts; d. June 8, 1940 Westwood, Massachusetts) was an American composer of classical music. Even though Converse was firmly committed to composing in the late Romantic idiom of his European contemporaries, his works often dealt with American subjects. The lush orchestral scoring of his program music has been compared to the early style of Richard Strauss. In 1905, Converse's opera The Pipe of Desire became the first American work ever to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Today, Converse is best known for his symphonic poem The Mystic Trumpeter (1904), based on the poem of the same name from Walt Whitman's iconic anthology, Leaves of Grass.

Among Converse's notable students were Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) and Florence Price (1888-1953).