Parker, who be­gan writ­ing music at age 15, stu­died com­po­si­tion in Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts, un­der George Chad­wick. He served as a church or­gan­ist in Ded­ham, Mass­a­chu­setts (1880-1882), then went on to stu­dy at the Mu­nich Con­serv­a­to­ry in Ger­ma­ny (1882-1885). Lat­er, he taught and served as church mu­si­cian in New York City (1886-93). In 1893, his The Dream King and His Love won a prize from the Na­tion­al Con­serv­a­tory. His or­a­to­ry “Ho­ra No­vis­si­ma” pre­miered in New York in 1893, and in 1899 be­came the first Amer­i­can work to be per­formed at the Three Choirs Fes­tiv­al in Wor­ces­ter, Eng­land.

Parker was or­gan­ist and choir mas­ter at Trin­i­ty Church in Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts (1893-1902), then Pro­fess­or of Mu­sic (1894) and dean of the School of Mu­sic at Yale Un­i­ver­si­ty (1904). He con­duct­ed the New Ha­ven Sym­pho­ny (1895-1918) and the New Ha­ven Chor­al So­ci­e­ty (1903-14), and served as or­gan­ist and choir mas­ter at St. Ni­cho­las’ Church, New York Ci­ty (1902-10). He al­so wrote op­er­as, Mo­na (1912) and Fair­y­land (1915) be­ing the best known.

Sources

Music

1. Garden City
2. Mount Sion
3. Omaha
4. Pax Veritatis
5. Pixham
6. Sun and Shield