Frederic Archer

Frederic Archer was a British composer, conductor and organist, born in Oxford. He moved to the US in 1880, where he established the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Frederic Archer.

From the period sources

Frederic Archer, born in Oxford in 1838, received his early musical training from his father, followed by studies in London and Leipzig. He established a diverse career in London as an organist, conductor, and opera director before moving to New York in 1881, where he served as organist for Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and later the Church of the Incarnation in New York, giving ninety organ concerts in Chickering Hall (Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, 1888). In America, Archer founded and edited the musical weekly “The Key-note” in 1885, and conducted the Boston Oratorio Society starting in 1887 (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1900). From 1896 to 1898, he led the Pittsburgh Orchestra, an organization established with Andrew Carnegie’s gift to the city, though Grove’s Dictionary (1922) notes he was “chiefly known as an organist” despite some prior conducting experience in the English provinces. A contemporary assessment in Brown’s Biographical Dictionary (1886) described Archer as “a very good organist, a successful conductor, and a moderately good composer,” particularly successful when writing for his “adopted instrument, the organ.” He died in Pittsburgh in 1901 (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1905).