John Kirkpatrick (18 March 1905 – 8 November 1991) was an American classical pianist and music scholar, best known for championing the works of Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Carl Ruggles, and Roy Harris. He gave the first complete public performance of Ives's Concord Sonata in 1939, which became a turning point in the composer's public recognition. Kirkpatrick played an important role in Ives scholarship, and he was leader in the Charles Ives Society. One important example is his role in the editing of Memos, which is a collection of Ives's autobiographical writings. At the time of his death Kirkpatrick was a professor emeritus at Yale University, where he had also been the curator of the Charles Ives archives.
Contents
Life and career
Early years
Kirkpatrick was born on 18 March 1905 to John and Marguerite (née Haviland) Kirkpatrick in New York City, where his father had a jewelry business. He was educated at Lawrenceville School before entering Princeton University in 1922 where he studied classics and then art history. (At the time, Princeton did not have a music department.) In the summer of 1925 he traveled to France to study piano under Nadia Boulanger at The American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. He returned to Princeton for his final year but abandoned his studies in February 1926 to return to France. He would remain there for the next five years, attending the École normale de musique de Paris and studying piano with Boulanger, Camille Decreus, and Isidor Philipp at Fontainebleau and Louta Nouneberg in Paris. Kirkpatrick returned to the United States in 1931, living at first in Greenwich Village and supporting himself by teaching piano. He and Aaron Copland had been fellow students at Fontainebleau, and on his return Kirkpatrick became part of the composer's artistic circle. He performed at the first Festival of Contemporary Music, organized by Copland at the Yaddo artists' colony in 1932 and went on to perform at Yaddo for the next 20 years, playing new works by Copland, Charles Ives, Robert Palmer, and Carl Ruggles.