Theodore Presser Company
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| Parent company | Carl Fischer Music |
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| Founded | 1883 |
| Founder | Theodore Presser |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | King of Prussia, Pennsylvania |
| Publication types | Sheet music |
| Official website | www |
The Theodore Presser Company is an American music publishing and distribution company located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and formerly based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest continuing music publisher in the United States. It has been owned by Carl Fischer Music since 2004.
Theodore Presser was born July 3, 1848, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to German emigrant Christian Presser and Caroline Dietz. As a young man he worked in an iron foundry helping to mold cannon balls for the army during the Civil War. This activity proved too strenuous for his young physique, and at 16 he began selling tickets for the Strokosch Opera Company in Pittsburgh. In 1864, he began working as a clerk at C.C. Mellor's music store in Pittsburgh. He eventually achieved the position of sheet music department manager.
Presser began his musical studies at 19 by learning to play the piano. At 20, he began studies music at Mt. Union College, where he stayed for a year and then worked as a piano teacher at Ohio Northern University for two years. Further studies were completed at Miami Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, and the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany under Reinecke, Jadassoh, and Zwintscher. His late start in learning to play the piano handicapped his technique.
He is credited as the founder of the Department of Music at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he taught 1876-1878. While there, he founded the Music Teachers National Association. His studies in Germany lasted from 1878 to 1880. He then became director of music at Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. In October 1883, while working at Hollins, he began publication of The Etude music magazine with only $250 in cash. The immediate success of his new magazine prompted him to seek larger publishing facilities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1884.
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