Somary, Johannes (Felix)
Somary, Johannes (Felix)
Somary, Johannes (Felix) , American organist, conductor, and composer; b. Zürich (of American parents), April 7, 1935. He was taken to the U.S. as a child, and received his musical training at Yale Coll. (B.A., 1957) and with Quincy Porter and Keith Wilson at the Yale Univ. School of Music (M.M., 1959). In 1961 he founded the Amor Artis Chorale and Orch., which he conducted in much Baroque music; led the U.S. premieres of Handel’s Esther in 1961, Theodora in 1963, and Susanna in 1965; also was a guest conductor in the U.S. and Europe. From 1971 he was chairman of the arts and music dept. at the Horace Mann School in N.Y. He also was conductor of the Fairfield County Chorale (from 1975), the Great Neck Choral Soc. (from 1982), and the Taghkanic Chorale (from 1992). He composed orch. works, choral pieces, songs, and chamber music.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire