Introduction

Biography

Gleason was the son of Fred­er­ic La­throp Glea­son and Mar­tha Will­ard, and hus­band of Ma­bel Blanche Ken­ni­cott.

His fa­ther, a ban­ker and ama­teur flau­tist, want­ed him to en­ter the min­is­try, but ev­en­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed Fred’s de­ci­sion to be­come a com­pos­er in­stead.

Gleason stu­died in Hart­ford un­der Dud­ley Buck, then in 1869 went to Leip­zig, Ger­ma­ny, to stu­dy with Ig­naz Mo­scheles and Hans Rich­ter.

After six years in Eur­ope, he re­turned to Amer­i­ca, and served as a church or­gan­ist. In 1877, he moved to Chi­ca­go to join the fa­cul­ty of the Her­shey School of Mu­sic.

In 1897, Glea­son be­came pre­si­dent of the Am­er­ican Pa­tri­o­tic Mu­sic­al League, lat­er served as ge­ne­ral di­rec­tor of the Chi­ca­go Con­ser­va­to­ry (1900–03).