Griffis, Elliot

The American composer, pianist, and teacher John Elliot Griffis was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 28, 1893. His father, William Elliot Griffis, came from a family of ship captains and coal merchants and is remembered for his books on the Far East and U. S. History. His mother, Katherine L. Stanton, hailed from a family comprised of ministers and college professors. Griffis grew up attending public school in Ithaca, New York but also attended the Manlius School before spending the years from 1909-1913 in study at Ithaca College. During childhood, Griffis studied piano with various teachers.

Griffis' compositional skills opened doors for further opportunity to him, including studies with Horatio Parker at Yale from 1913-1915 and Mason, Redman, Pattison, and Chadwick at New England Conservatory from 1917-1918. A period of service in the U.S. Army interrupted Griffis' composing beginning in 1919. Other major scholarships won by Griffis included a scholarship to Juilliard in 1922 and a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship in 1931.

Throughout his teaching career, he was an active composer and recitalist, often premiering his own works with other performers. In the 1920s, he taught at Grinnell College, Iowa and the Brooklyn Settlement School, and from 1935-1936 he served the Head of the Theory Department at the St. Louis School of Music. In 1937, he was awarded a doctorate from the New York College of Music. After serving as the director of the Westchester Conservatory of Music in White Plains, New York in 1942-1943, Griffis settled down in Los Angeles.

The bulk of Griffis' output is works for piano and songs or song cycles, although he has also written a number of chamber and orchestral works. He is also known for his 1963 opera The Port of Pleasure . Although Griffis was knowledgeable in modern music, he preferred to write in a clear tonal style based on a long time study of counterpoint and was inspired by the Romantic Period.

From the guide to the Elliot Griffis Collection None., 1913-1968, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)