Gustav Hinrichs

Gustav Hinrichs was born on 10 December 1850 in Grabow (Germany). He grew up in a musical family; his father, August Hinrichs, was a musician and became his first teacher, giving him instruction in violin, piano, and clarinet. He began conducting at about the age of fifteen and soon gained practical orchestral experience by performing with the orchestra of the Hamburg State Opera. His formal musical education continued in Hamburg, where he studied composition with Angelo Reisland and the respected pedagogue Eduard Marxsen, a teacher also known for instructing Johannes Brahms. 
In 1870 Gustav Hinrichs emigrated to the United States, partly to avoid compulsory military service in Germany. He first settled in San Francisco, where acquaintances of his family lived. There he quickly established himself as a professional musician. He earned his living as a piano teacher and church organist while conducting several choral societies, and soon entered the world of opera. In San Francisco he worked as conductor for companies such as the Fabbri Italian and German Opera Company, the Emily Melville Opera Company, and later the Tivoli Opera House. In 1885 he moved to New York, where he served as assistant conductor to Theodore Thomas with the American Opera Company. Three years later he settled in Philadelphia, where he founded his own opera ensemble, known under several names including the National Opera Company and the Gustav Hinrichs Opera Company. As conductor and impresario he played a significant role in introducing major European operatic repertoire to American audiences, leading important United States premieres such as Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (1891) and Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (1894), as well as conducting performances with the Metropolitan Opera toward the end of the century. Alongside his conducting career, he also taught at institutions including the National Conservatory of Music and Columbia University between 1895 and 1906, influencing a generation of American musicians.
As a composer, Hinrichs created four operas along with numerous songs, choral compositions, orchestral works, and arrangements. Two of his operas were performed during his lifetime: Der Vierjährige Posten, premiered in San Francisco in 1877, and Onti-Ora, first staged in Philadelphia in 1890, which was noted for its attempt to create a distinctly American operatic subject. He also became active in orchestral arranging and later contributed music to the emerging film industry; in the 1920s he composed and arranged orchestral accompaniments for silent films produced by Universal Studios, including the score for the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney.
In the 1920s Hinrichs gradually withdrew from active conducting and retired to Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, where he continued teaching and composing privately. There he died on 26 March 1942.