Theodore Presser Company
The Theodore Presser Company is an American music publishing and distribution company located in Malvern, Pennsylvania, formerly King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and originally 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.[1]
Parent company
1883
Theodore Presser
History[edit]
Theodore Presser[edit]
Theodore Presser was born July 3, 1848, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to German emigrant Christian Presser and Caroline Dietz.[2] As a teenager, 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[3] and in 1864, at 16, he began selling tickets for the Strokosch Opera Company in Pittsburgh.[4] At the same time, he began working as a clerk at C.C. Mellor's music store in Pittsburgh.[3] He eventually rose to become sheet-music department manager.[4]
Presser began his musical studies by learning to play the piano at age 19. The next year, he began studying 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.[2] 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.[2]