Introduction

Biography

Yoakley was the son of John Yoak­ley and Su­san St. John, and hus­band of Jo­se­phine S. Royce.

Yoakley was a mem­ber of the Epis­co­pal de­nom­in­ation, a Knight Tem­plar and Scot­tish Rite Ma­son.

He served as or­gan­ist at Christ Church in Cin­cin­na­ti. His fa­ther, a com­pos­er, played the or­gan at All Saints Church in Ports­mouth for 32 years. His grand­father, Will­iam Yoak­ley, was al­so a mu­si­cian and com­pos­er; the Pres­by­ter­ian hym­nal con­tains one of his com­po­si­tions named for him­self Yoak­ley.

John the young­er re­ceived pri­vate mu­sic train­ing from his fa­ther un­til age 18. In 1878, he went to Cin­cin­na­ti to con­tin­ue his stu­dies, and de­vel­oped an im­press­ive re­pu­ta­tion. He was re­cog­nized to such an ex­tent that his Te De­um in F re­ceived its ini­tial ren­di­tion at a ser­vice for the con­se­cra­tion of a bi­shop of the Epis­co­pal church in Rich­mond, Vir­gin­ia.

Works

His tune All Souls was chos­en for the Am­eri­can Mis­sion­ary Hymn for in­ser­tion in the Church of Eng­land hym­nal.

His oth­er works in­clude:

• Benedicite
• Bonum Est
• Beyond The Stars
• Deus Mi­se­re­atur
• Gypsey Scene
• Ideal
• Jubilate
• Longing
• Lord, For­ev­er At Thy Side
• Polacca
• Spring