F.G. Rathbun, Virginia Glee Club conductor and hymn composer

F.G. Rathbun, courtesy Rathbun-Rathbone-Rathburn Family Historian A brief one today, about a peripheral feature in early Virginia Glee Club history. Frederick G. Rathbun (1862–1903) conducted the Glee Club for a single season, but lived an unusually varied and rich life in music outside of his experience with the Glee Club. Rathbun was born in South Lee, Massachusetts, which is about a fifteen-minute drive from Tanglewood, in 1862, and attended New England Conservatory, making him one of only a few Glee Club conductors with conservatory training (the others: Frank Albinder and James S. Constantine). Following his marriage to Ida S. Warren, he and his bride moved to Virginia, where he was the organist at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hampton and a music teacher at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). Sometime in the following years he was connected with the University of Virginia Glee Club, and became their conductor for the 1895–1896 season, succeeding Harrison Randolph.…