Introduction

Biography

Tracy made his first pub­lic ap­pear­ance at age 10, when he con­duct­ed the or­ches­tra for a per­form­ance of Ol­iv­er Twist, put on by the com­pa­ny head­ed by Fan­nie Da­ven­port and her hus­band.

His sub­se­quent ca­reer, he said in an in­ter­view, had four major ac­comp­lish­ments:

First was my work for the First Corps Ca­dets and the Bank Of­fic­ers As­so­cia­tion of Bos­ton. I di­rect­ed all their per­form­anc­es, and they gained an en­vi­able re­pu­ta­tion in their day.

The se­cond big ev­ent of my life came when I was sum­moned to Eng­land by Sir Ar­thur Sul­li­van to as­sist him in the Gil­bert and Sul­li­van op­eras. We sailed, Mrs. Tra­cy and my­self, just af­ter we were mar­ried, and we re­mained in Eur­ope two years.

When we returned to Am­eri­ca we toured the coun­try from coast to coast with the then fa­mous Han­lon Bro­thers, pan­to­mim­ists. I composed, arranged, and directed all the mu­sic for their shows, and my wife sang in the com­pa­ny.

The fourth and crown­ing achieve­ment of my life has been my work for the past se­ven years in the em­ploy of the State of Mas­sa­chu­setts, do­ing spe­cial work among the fee­ble mind­ed.

We have been try­ing out a great ex­pe­ri­ment—the ap­pli­ca­tion of mu­sic­al vi­bra­tions to the cure of men­tal de­fect­ives—and I am glad to say that the re­sults have been won­der­ful.

Tracy lived near Lew­is­ton, Maine, for about two years around 1890, dur­ing which time he found­ed the Ru­ben­stein Club of Lew­is­ton and Au­burn, and the Maine Con­ser­va­tory of Mu­sic. He be­came a pro­fess­or of mu­sic at a Bos­ton col­lege about a year be­fore his death.