Biographical Note
George Lowell Tracy was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on February 21, 1855. Both of his parents were musically inclined. Tracy’s father Cyrus, a botanist and professor of medical material at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, was an amateur composer and flautist. His mother Caroline was an adept pianist who regularly sang in her church’s choir. Consequently, Tracy, having thoroughly absorbed their combination of skills and receiving additional training from local instructors, was capable of directing orchestras, bands, and choruses, as well as playing and teaching any musical instrument while still a juvenile. The violin was his self-professed favorite. Despite this he acquired the position of violist at both the Park Theatre and the Tremont Theatre in Boston.
Tracy dabbled in acting and stage managing while in his twenties, but inevitably returned to his first love of music. On November 27, 1883, he married fellow musician Martha Agnes Walker who, like his mother, was a church singer. At the request of Sir Arthur Sullivan, the couple traveled to England soon after their nuptials so that Tracy could prepare arrangements for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Later in life the composer would accredit this experience and his time in London as the impetus of his creative refinement and the awakening of his musical passion.
By the time he passed away on August 12, 1921, in Boston, Massachusetts, after a two-month bout with an undisclosed illness, George Tracy was considered a local celebrity in the city of Boston. Just a year prior, he had assumed the roles of professor of music and the Director of Musical Clubs at Boston College. In the decade before his death, the state appointed him to teach music to the students of the Massachusetts School of the Feeble-Minded. Along with his work with Sullivan, Tracy considered his seven-year stint at the institution one of the four crowning achievements of his life. The remaining two were his collaboration with the First Corps of Cadets, for whom he composed and directed their musical performances, and his work with the Hanlon Brothers, a famous pantomime troupe with whom he toured for three seasons while writing, arranging, and conducting all of their music.