Sixty Years of California SongAlverson, Margaret Blake
History
Sixty Years of California Song
Alverson, Margaret Blake
Music -- California -- History and criticism
Mr. Mayer, organist and tenor, arrived in San Francisco, May 13, 1866,
from New York City where he was organist of Calvary and other churches
and solo tenor of Trinity Episcopal Church. The Sunday following his
arrival he commenced his duties as tenor of Trinity Episcopal Church
in San Francisco where his brother, James C. Mayer, was at that time
the organist. Continuing in that position until May 1, 1868, he
resigned to accept the position of organist in St. John's Episcopal
Church, Oakland, remaining there until May 1, 1872, when he was
appointed organist and tenor of the First Congregational Church of San
Francisco, serving in this dual capacity for forty years. He
relinquished the position of tenor but continued to act as organist
and musical director and on May 1, 1912, he will have completed forty
years of consecutive service in this church.
MRS. J.M. PIERCE
Mrs. Pierce has been identified with the history of music in San
Francisco since the early days. Born in Philadelphia, and losing her
mother when she was but five years of age, her father, Mr. Samuel
Cameron, brought her to California across the Isthmus, to place her
in the loving and motherly care of his sister, Mrs. Eugene Doyle, who
had one daughter of almost the same age. These cousins afterward
became very well known in the public school and church histories by
their duet singing, Ida Doyle and Maggie Cameron being in demand on
all important public festivals. On the night of the arrival of the
steamer when the father and little daughter reached the home on Rincon
Point, then the best residential part of San Francisco, where a hearty
welcome awaited them, the little five-year-old child was told to "sing
for her new-found relatives" and with pale face and dressed in deep
mourning even to a little black silk bonnet, for the lost mother, she
sang Lily Dale and Old Dog Tray while all listened with tears and
astonishment to the sympathetic voice, and an uncle, Mr. James
Cameron, exclaimed, "It's not a child, it's a witch." In the old
Rincon school, so famous for its splendid teachers and also many
scholars who afterwards became famous in California history, Maggie
Cameron was called Hail Columbia because her voice could lead the
singing of the entire school so strongly. In the old high school,
corner of Bush and Stockton streets, under the leadership of Mr. Ellis
Holmes, who was a devotee of music and himself possessed of a rich
bass voice, Miss Cameron developed into a public singer, doing her
first solo work on the "musical days" of the Girls' High School.
She was a pupil of Mrs. Marriner-Campbell five consecutive years,
singing with her teacher in duets all over the state; of Otto Linden
in sight reading; Mme. Rosewald, operatic repertoire, and of Richard
Mulder, husband of Inez Fabbri. Mr. Mulder called Mrs. Pierce "his
most distinguished pupil."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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