1897 | Mar 11 | Born at the family dwelling in Menlo Park. California. Father:
Harry Clavton Black-wood Cowell, born an Irishman. Mother:
Claris.sa Bel knap Dixon Cowell. of a midwestern family. |
1902 | | Shows precocious interest in an old zither; is given a violin bv
his mother. Takes some lessons from one Henry Holmes. |
1903 | | Nervous disorder ends his public school career after a few weeks;
also hi.s violin career. His father drifts away from home. |
1907-10 | | Dire poverty. A time of wanderings, to New York and among
relatives in the Midwest. |
1910 | | Returns to hovel in Menio Park (see pp. xvi-xix for two accounts
of him in this period). |
1912 | | Old upright piano enables him to begin externalizing his hitherto
mental music. |
1914 | | Members of the community make him known to Charles Seeger
and other members of the music faculty at the University of
California. Berkeley. Seeger recognizes a true autodidact and
gives general guidance outside the classroom. |
| Mar 5 | His first formal recital, for the San Francisco Musical Society.
reviewed by the Sun Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco
Examiner. |
1916 | May | Death of his mother. |
| Oct | Goes to New York. enrolling (sometime in November) in the In-
stitute of Musical Art. At the urging of Seeger to rationalize his
manner of playing piano, he begins to write New Musical
Resource (which will be published in 1930). - |
| Dec 3 | Plays in joint recital at the New York Public Library (East 58th
Street branch) sponsored by "Our Family Music," a project of
the New York Globe directed by Charles D. Isaacson. |