Brother of William Perkins, Henry in­her­it­ed mu­sic­al tal­ent from his par­ents: his fa­ther was a not­ed sing­ing teach­er, and his mo­ther an ex­cel­lent vo­cal­ist. He re­ceived his first mu­sic­al train­ing from his fa­ther, and at­tend­ed some of the best li­ter­ary schools in his youth. His for­mal mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion be­gan in 1857, when he en­tered the Bos­ton Mu­sic School, where he grad­u­at­ed in 1861. For over 20 years, he de­vot­ed con­sid­er­a­ble time to con­duct­ing mu­sic fes­ti­vals and con­ven­tions through­out Amer­i­ca, from Maine to Cal­i­for­nia, and in teach­ing in “nor­mal” mu­sic schools in New York, Ohio, In­di­a­na, Wis­con­sin, Io­wa, Col­o­ra­do, Kan­sas, and Tex­as. He al­so served as Pro­fess­or of Mu­sic at the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Io­wa (1867-1869); prin­ci­pal of the Io­wa Acad­e­my of Mu­sic, Io­wa Ci­ty, for five years; and prin­ci­pal at the Kan­sas Nor­mal Mu­sic School for five con­se­cu­tive sum­mers. He al­so com­posed vo­cal mu­sic for choirs, Sun­day school, pub­lic schools, chor­al so­ci­e­ties, con­ven­tions and fes­ti­vals. He helped or­ganize the Mu­sic Teach­ers’ Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion in in 1876, and served in near­ly ev­ery of­fi­cial ca­pa­ci­ty in that or­gan­i­za­tion be­tween 1887 and 1897. He al­so or­gan­ized the Il­li­nois Mu­sic Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion in 1886, and served as its pre­si­dent for 10 years. He set­tled in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, in 1872, and was a not­ed mu­sic cri­tic for the pa­pers there. In 1891, he es­tab­lished the Chi­ca­go Na­tio­nal Coll­ege of Mu­sic. His works in­clude:

• The Nightingale, 1860
• Sabbath School Trumpet, 1864
• Church Bell, 1867
• College Hymn and Tune Book, 1868
• Perkins’ Vocal Method, 1868
• Song Echo, 1871
• Advance, 1872
• River of Life, 1873
• Headlight, 1873
• Convention Choruses, 1874
• Sunnyside, 1875
• Shining River, 1875
• New Century, 1876
• Glee and Chorus Book, 1876
• Graded Music Reader, 1877, 1878
• Glorious Tidings, 1878
• Perkins’ Class and Choir, 1879
• Perkins’ Graded Anthems, 1880
• Palms of Victory, 1880
• Model Class Book, 1881
• Good Templar, 1881
• Song Wave, 1882
• The Wavelet, 1882
• The Choir, 1883

Sources

Music

1. Blessed Be the Fountain