Lowell Mason

Lowell Mason ( born January 8, 1792 in Medfield, Massachusetts, † August 11, 1872 in Orange, New Jersey) was an American composer and music educator and is considered an important reformer of the church and school music.

Mason led the age of 16 the church choir and the orchestra at age 18 in his hometown. In 1815 he became organist and choirmaster at the Presbyterian Church of Savannah. In 1827 he was director of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society and served as musical director of church music. Together with George J. Webb in 1832 he founded the Boston Academy of Music, has been teaching at the according to the principles of Pestalozzi.

Mason wrote and edited more than one thousand five hundred hymns, including such well-known as Nearer, My God, to Thee, My Faith Looks Up to Thee and From Greenland 's Icy Mountains. His son Henry Mason (1831-1890) founded one of the first organ building and piano builders in the U.S., his son William Mason (1829-1908) was an eminent concert pianist and piano teacher, composer Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953) was his grandson.