New York chamber music society.

Carolyn Harding Beebe (she later spelled her first name as Caroline) was born in Westfield, New Jersey, the daughter of Silas Edwin and Helen Tift Beebe, sometime around 1874. She showed musical interest at an early age and began formal instruction when she was 12 with her aunt, Charlotte Beebe. Carolyn continued her musical studies in Berlin where she studied with Joseph Mosenthal, Paul Tidden, and Moritz Moszkowski. She made her debut at the Singakademie, Berlin, in 1903.

Beebe concertized extensively in Europe, and especially in the United States and Canada, where she played as a soloist in more than 300 cities. She spent the summer of 1912 studying with Harold Bauer in Vevey and Paris. At that time her manager was Loudon Charlton. Beebe taught piano at the Institute of Musical Art (the precursor of the Juilliard School of Music) from its founding in 1905 until 1919.

Though she appears to have had a reasonable career as a solo pianist (including a recital at White House for President Woodrow Wilson), Beebe preferred to play chamber music. For a while she performed with Edouard Dethier, and then with Georges Longy, first oboist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1913, Longy decided not to continue, so Beebe joined forced with Gustave Langenus, clarinetist of the Barrère Ensemble and of the New York Symphony Orchestra. It was out of this collaboration that the New York Chamber Music Society was conceived in 1914. Its purpose was to bring attention to chamber music by placing an emphasis the programming of unusual and infrequently-heard works. The New York Chamber Music Society debuted on December 17, 1916, at Aeolian Hall in New York City. They continued to have a series of several concerts per year at Aeolian Hall.

In 1924 the Society introduced a new series, "Sunday Salons at the Plaza," which featured music in an area of the Plaza Hotel. The Society appears to have ceased its activities in the late 1930s.

Caroline Beebe was married Dr. Henry H. Whitehouse, a prominent dermatologist. The Beebe family maintained a home in Mystic, Connecticut, where Beebe often spent her summers.

Caroline Beebe Whitehouse died on September 23, 1950, aged 76.

From the guide to the New York Chamber Music Society scores, ca. 1900-ca. 1932, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)