Edward Margetson

1891 - 1962

About

Edward Margeston (1891 – 1962) was born in Parsons, Kansas to a musical family, his father being a choral director, while his mother was a prominently known pianist. His musical talents show as early as the age of five, when he played a funeral dirge at his mother’s funeral.  As a youth, Teddy Margetson attended the St. Kitts Grammar School. He was also encouraged by his grandmother to teach himself music and at fourteen years of age, he was able to fill the vacancy of organist at the St. George’s Anglican Church in Basseterre. His next appointment was at the Moravian Church where he served as both organist and choir director until June 1919. The loss of the family fortune made a career in music impractical, and in April 1910 he first found work as a copyist.  In July of that same year Margetson was employed as a junior clerk at the Treasury. In the years that followed he acted as Revenue Officer, Tariff Clerk and Cashier. In 1915 he was graded as 4th revenue officer and promoted to 3rd revenue officer in January 1917. His salary was then £75 per annum but he also received fees for after hours work. In 1919 Margetson decided to immigrate to the United States. Once there he had to ‘rough it’ in order to achieve his aim of obtaining a musical education. Soon after his arrival in New York, he took on the post of organist and Minister of Music for the Church of the Crucifixion, and continued to hold that post until his retirement. He returned briefly to St. Kitts and was joined by his wife, Rosmond in 1923 and returned to New York the following year. In 1927, he established the Schubert society, an organization that is still around today, to incite appreciation for sacred music among the African-American community. Eventually Margetson enrolled at the Department of Music at Columbia University, New York where his compositions featured in various annual concerts. In 1925 he won the Victor Baier Fellowship in Church Music and two years later, was awarded a medal by the William Harmon Foundation. Other awards included the Joseph Mozenthal Fellowship in Composition (1934). Margetson’s rendition of The Passion according to Matthew by Johan Sebastian Bach during the Easter season of 1938 was said to have been the first time that that difficult composition was attempted by anyone in New York City.  In 1943, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters gave him a grant of $1000 recognizing his “remarkable work as a composer of acapella music and as the director of a choral group devoted to the finest standard of songs”. The Rosenwald Foundation of Chicago, which had a special interest in Negro Education, made him a similar award for composition and the creation of a choral group dedicated to the finest standards of songs.

Related Information

http://historicbasseterre.com/hs_persons.asp?HSID=23&PID=38

Works by Edward Margetson