Milligan, Harold Vincent, 1888-1951

Harold Vincent Milligan (1888-1951) was an American organist, composer, and writer on music. He spent his early years in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and from the age of twelve, he was an organist in churches where his father was minister. He moved to New York City in 1907 to study with William Crane Carl, organist of the Old First Presbyterian Church, and at the Guilmant Organ School. His teachers included T. Tertius Noble, Clement R. Gale, and Arthur E. Johnstone. After one year as organist at the First Presbyterian Church of Orange, New Jersey, Milligan worked five years at Rutgers Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, and two years at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. In 1915, he was appointed organist at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church (later renamed Riverside Church), a position he held until his retirement in 1940. He served as president of the National Association of Organists (1929-1932) and national secretary of the American Guild of Organists (1926-1951).

For many years Milligan wrote criticism for The Diapason and The New Music Review, and was a columnist for The American Organist and Woman's Home Companion. He wrote Stories of Famous Operas (1950), and edited The Best Known Hymns and Prayers of the American People (1942), and (with Geraldine Souvaine) The Opera Quiz Book (1948). Milligan also authored short fiction, lectured on opera at Columbia University, and was associate director of the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts.

Milligan composed two operettas for children, The Outlaws of Etiquette (1914) and The Laughabet (1918), and incidental music for several plays, as well as numerous songs, secular and sacred choral works, and organ pieces. In addition, he collected and edited four volumes of previously undiscovered 18th century American songs, chiefly by Francis Hopkinson, and wrote the first biography of Stephen Foster (1920).

Source: Mary A. Wischusen. "Milligan, Harold Vincent." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed February 7, 2013, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2088095.

From the guide to the Harold Vincent Milligan papers, 1903-1951, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)