Biographical Note
Glenn Dillard Gunn was an American pianist, conductor, music critic, and teacher. He was born on October 2, 1874, in Topeka, Kansas, to Liela C. Gunn (born 1847) and John D. Gunn (born 1840) of Nova Scotia, Canada. Gunn served as a music critic for the Chicago Tribune (1910-1915), Chicago Herald Examiner (1922-1936), Washington Times-Herald (1940-1954), Chicago Journal, and Chicago Inter-Ocean.
In 1893, he entered the Leipzig Royal Conservatory and continued to study music throughout Germany until 1900. Upon his return to the United States, Gunn began teaching at the Chicago Musical Collection and remained there until 1905. He founded and conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in 1915 and established the Glenn Dillard Gunn School of Music and Dramatic Art in 1922. Of note among his many students was pianist and composer Ernst Bacon, whom he taught from 1914 to 1916. In 1932, Gunn was elected Artistic Director of the Chicago Conservatory of Music and served as a faculty member at Illinois Wesleyan University beginning that same year. In 1939, he released his only published work, Music: Its History and Enjoyment.
On June 23, 1903, Gunn married Bessie Gertrude Bracken (born 1882) and they had three children: Janet Elizabeth (1915-1998) who married Hecktor Fredrick McLean, Nancy Eleanor (1916-2008) who married Joseph S. Stephens, and Donald Bracken (born circa 1910 and died 1921). Gunn died in Washington, D.C., on November 22, 1963.