Aaron Richmond
| Aaron Richmond | |
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Aaron Richmond: performing arts manager, pianist, impresario, and educator
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| Born |
Aaron Richmond October 28, 1895 Salem, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | April 21, 1965 (aged 69) Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | impresario, promoter, arts administrator, concert pianist |
Aaron Richmond (October 28, 1895 in Salem, Massachusetts – April 21, 1965 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American performing arts manager, pianist, impresario, and educator, based in Boston, Massachusetts, who managed the careers of numerous classical musicians and founded Celebrity Series of Boston, a performing arts presenting organization that still operates today.
Aaron Richmond was born in 1895 in Salem, Massachusetts where he had his formal education. After graduating from high school, he intensified his musical training with the goal of becoming a concert pianist. The following was noted in a brief Boston Globe review of a 1919 performance in which Richmond accompanied baritone Giovanni Petrucci at Boston's Steinert Hall, "Mr. Petrucci was assisted by Aaron Richmond, who played his accompaniments and a group of piano pieces."
In 1917, Richmond toured extensively as a pianist with the Tchaikovsky Quartet. During the same period, Richmond’s friend, conductor Arthur Fiedler, was forced to cancel a series of bookings on the Chautauqua circuit. Mr. Richmond filled in as pianist on the tour and later organized Richmond’s Little Symphony, a sextet that toured the circuit for several summers playing arrangements of orchestral works. He served as pianist and lecturer on the program and often the newspaper critic of the concerts. Richmond’s Little Symphony made at least one Chautuaqua circuit tour with William Jennings Bryan.
An onstage lapse of memory during Richmond's Boston debut caused him to reevaluate his professional goals and led him to a career in music management. His first office contained a studio where he continued to teach piano while he formed the core of his artists’ list from members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and some prominent Boston vocalists.
Pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski was quoted as saying of Richmond, "[He was] perhaps the only manager I have ever known to whom the word 'suite' has meant a musical composition and not a set of furniture for a room." In the Daily Boston Globe in 1948, Richmond said of himself, "Music to me is not just a business, an occupation, but a passion ... presenting great artists to the public, and expanding that public, is my mission. I never feel right unless I am convinced that my artists are of top rank."
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