Tali Esen Morgan

Tali Esen Morgan (28 October 1858 – June 1941), born Taliesen Morgan, was a Welsh-born American conductor, composer, and publisher. He was the musical director at Ocean Grove, a large Methodist summer resort on the New Jersey shore,[1] for almost twenty years.

Tali Esen Morgan during his Ocean Grove years

Early life

Taliesen Morgan was born at Llangynwyd, Glamorganshire, one of ten children of Thomas Llyfnwy Morgan and Gwenllian Beven Morgan. He attended schools in Maesteg, and held an apprenticeship with a printer.[2] He settled with his family in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1876, for three years. Although he was very young, he published a Welsh-interest newspaper, The Cambro-American, while there.[3]

Career

In 1897, Morgan directed choirs for a summer concert at Ocean Grove. The following year, he became the resort's musical director. Conductor Walter Damrosch encouraged him to use "Tali Esen" rather than the original version of his first name.[4] As musical director, he worked with visiting artists such as Enrico Caruso, John Phillips Sousa, Lillian Nordica, and Louise Homer. He was responsible for a thousand-voice children's chorus, and a 63-piece orchestra.[5]

He oversaw the purchase and installation of the Robert Hope-Jones organ in the Great Auditorium in 1908.[5] He composed the "Storm Fantasia" for the Hope-Jones organ, and that piece played regularly in the Great Auditorium for many years; it was a staple offering of other theatre organ recitals too.[6]

Morgan continued as musical director at Ocean Grove until 1915.[5] Morgan was also music director at Second Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.[7] He conducted the New York Festival Chorus,[8] and was president of the International Correspondence School of Music.[3]

After Ocean Grove, Morgan co-directed the Asbury Park Summer School in 1917.[9] In 1919 he conducted a large girls' chorus at the Baptist Temple in Brooklyn.[10]

Morgan composed or arranged many works for choral performance.[11] He published a Methodist hymnal based on the songs sung at Ocean Grove.[12]

Personal life

Tali Esen Morgan married Mary Jane Jones in 1881. They had six children. One son, Paul Morgan, died in 1929, at age 33. Another son, Kays Richard Morgan, became a lawyer in New Jersey.[2] Tali Esen Morgan was widowed in 1938. He died in summer 1941, age 82, after a heart attack at his daughter Edith's house in New York.[13]

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References
  1. Glenn Uminowitz, "Recreation in a Christian America: Ocean Grove and Asbury Park, New Jersey, 1869-1914" in Kathryn Grover, ed., Hard at Play: Leisure in America, 1840 to 1940 (University of Massachusetts Press 1992): 33-34. ISBN 9780870237928
  2. "Kays Richard Morgan" in History of Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1664-1920 (Lewis Historical Publishing 1922): 213-214.
  3. "Tali Esen Morgan" in Scannell's New Jersey First Citizens (J. J. Scannell 1919): 369.
  4. Wayne T. Bell, Ocean Grove (Arcadia Publishing 2000): 56. ISBN 9780738504254
  5. Morris S. Daniels, Story of Ocean Grove, 1869-1919 (Methodist Book Company 1919): 236.
  6. Rick Altman, Silent Film Sound (Columbia University Press 2004): 332. ISBN 9780231116626
  7. "Is Selected as Director" Pittsburgh Post (22 March 1904): 6. via Newspapers.com
  8. "Social Service in Song" Social Service: A Review of Social and Industrial Betterment (1901): 217.
  9. "Ziegler Institute Summer School" Musical Monitor 7(1917): 509.
  10. "Tali Esen Morgan to Conduct Chorus of Brooklyn Children" Musical America (November 15, 1919): 143.
  11. Tali Esen Morgan, in Catalogue of Title Entries of Books and Other Articles Entered in the Office of the Registrar of Copyrights 33(1902): 639-640.
  12. Tali Esen Morgan, Ocean Grove Christian Songs: The Big Little Book (Ocean Grove Association 1902).
  13. "Tali Esen Morgan" Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (2 July 1941): 29. via Newspapers.com
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