Filippo Trajetta

Filippo Trajetta (Venice, 1777 – Philadelphia, 1854) was an Italian-American composer and pedagogue, the son of the composer Tommaso Traetta. His significance lies above all in his role in the musical life of Boston, New York and Philadelphia during the first decades of the nineteenth century, a period in which he founded several conservatories in North America and promoted the teaching of singing and of basso continuo.

His training began in Venice, where he studied at a Jesuit college intended for a military career and received lessons from Fenaroli and Perillo. In 1799 he travelled to Naples to work with Piccinni, a musician of republican convictions. After enlisting in a patriot army, he was captured by the French and spent eight months in prison. He later managed to leave the country with a German passport and secretly boarded an American ship bound for Boston, where he arrived at the end of 1799.

In Boston, in 1801, he founded the American Conservatorio together with Graupner and Mallet, where he taught singing and performed as a violinist. Around 1802 he moved to Charleston, perhaps as an impresario, although he soon settled in New York, where he remained between 1808 and 1817 and reopened his conservatory. After four years in Virginia, he settled permanently in Philadelphia in 1822, where he once again established the institution.

Among his works are the oratorio Peace, premiered in New York in 1815, and other oratorios such as Jerusalem in Affliction and The Daughters of Zion, dated 1828 and 1829 but published in Germantown in 1854. His legacy also rests on his didactic writings, such as An Introduction to the Art and Science of Music and A Primer of Music, which reflect his determination to systematise musical teaching in a country that then lacked an established tradition.