Silas G. Pratt

|death_date= |birth_place=Addison, Vermont |death_place=Pittsburgh |restingplace=Chicago }}

Silas Gamaliel Pratt (August 4, 1846 – October 30, 1916) was an American composer, who often published under the pseudonym V. B. Aubert. Critic Elson described Pratt as "an example of the irrepressible Yankee in music".

He was born in Addison, Vermont. As a child he moved to Plainfield, IL, and as a young man he worked in Chicago for music dealers H. M. Higgins and Lyon & Healy, and gained enough proficiency on the piano to give public recitals. In Chicago he studied under Louis Staab and Paul Beeker.

In 1868 he travelled to Germany to further his studies. He studied with Theodor Kullak, Franz Bendel, Richard Wüerst, Friedrich Kiel, and Heinrich Dorn. During this time he suffered a wrist injury, which prevented his becoming a professional concert pianist. His first symphony was written and performed in Berlin in 1871.

Upon his return to the United States in 1871, he settled again in Chicago, immersing himself in the musical life there. He founded (and promptly quit) Chicago's Apollo Club in 1872 with George B. Upton, and became organist of the Church of the Messiah. He was the head piano instructor for Northwestern University's Conservatory of Music in 1874, and taught piano in Joliet. He produced the Chicago Grand Opera Festival

He returned to Germany between 1875 and 1877, where he called upon Liszt at Weimar, and was U.S. vice consul to Germany in the winter of 1876. During this trip, his Centennial Anniversary Overture, dedicated to Ulysses Grant, was performed twice in Berlin, and once in London during Grant's stop there on his world tour.

He made other trips to Europe, to England in 1885, and Antwerp in 1895 for the Antwerp International Exposition.

In 1888 Pratt moved to New York. He helped organize the American Day and Chicago Day programs at the World's Columbian Exposition, composing the inaugural fanfare for the latter. In the lead-up to the exposition, he had attempted to secure significant funding from the exposition on behalf of the nascent MTNA to produce concerts of American music. In 1895, he was appointed principal of the West End School of Music in New York, and was one of the founders of the Manuscript Society in New York.

He later moved to Pittsburgh, and established the Pratt Institute of Music and Art in 1906; he served as the Institute's president until his death in 1916. He was buried in Chicago. Provided by Wikipedia