Gilbert Raynolds Combs

Gilbert Raynolds Combs (January 5, 1863 – 1934) was an American pianist, organist, and player of stringed instruments; a composer of music for orchestra, piano, voice, and violin; a teacher; and an orchestral and chorus conductor. Gilbert Combs was founder of the Combs Broad Street Conservatory of Music in Philadelphia in 1885, one of the founders and president of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia national music fraternity, founder and vice president of the National Association of Schools of Music, and a Mason.

Gilbert Raynolds Combs was born to a musical family in Philadelphia. His father, Gilbert Combs, was one of the Vice Presidents of the Handel and Haydn Society in 1858 and served on the committee appointed by the United Presbyterian Church General Assembly to prepare its “Book of Praise” in 1872. He was also a distinguished pianist, organist, and composer. Gilbert Raynolds Combs showed a talent for music very early in life and received careful training. He studied music first under his father, and then under several American and European masters. He was educated at Eastburn Academy in Philadelphia. Though originally intended for the medical profession, he made such rapid progress, both at home and in Europe, that he decided to adopt music as his life-work.

From his fifteenth to his twenty-second year Combs was actively engaged in playing the organ, piano and ‘cello; teaching piano and violin; and directing orchestras, operatic companies and choruses. For twelve years he was organist at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church, later musical director at the South Broad Street Baptist Church and for six years organist at the Tenth Presbyterian Church.

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