Brethren Composer: The Autobiography of George B. Holsinger

A Composer's Lost Memoir is Revealed

In 1905, Brethren hymn composer George B. Holsinger (1857-1908) began an autobiography for the Brethren Publishing House in Elgin, Illinois. The handwritten manuscript contained an account of his childhood, his family, his community, and how he became interested in music and composing. It was full of anecdotes of people and places now long forgotten.

Holsinger, who became the first head of the music department at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Va., never finished his autobiography, dying in 1908 of pneumonia. The manuscript disappeared for more than 70 years, finally appearing in a Virginia auction in the early 1980s. For the first time, the world is seeing that manuscript through this book. Although not lengthy by normal book standards, Brethren Composer sheds valuable light on the private life of a man whose public life as a composer was well known.

Brethren Composer also features a foreword (which includes a biography of Holsinger), reproductions of several never-before-seen tintype photographs and an index.