Timothy Olmstead

Timothy Olmstead (Hartford, Connecticut, 1759 – Phoenix, New York, 1848) was an American composer who distinguished himself as a compiler of tune books, singing master and fife player. His career is of particular interest because it combines military service, musical teaching and sacred composition within the first decades of the young nation.

During the War of Independence he served as a fifer between 1775 and 1776 and, from 1777 to 1780, played in a regimental band. After the conflict he apparently settled in Connecticut, where he worked as a singing master. He also took part in the War of 1812, and in his final years he lived in Whitestown, in the state of New York.

His best-known publication is The Musical Olio, published in Northampton in 1805, with a second edition in 1811. It consists predominantly of European pieces in the Methodist style, although it includes twenty-five compositions of his own. Some years later he edited Martial Music (Albany, 1807), a collection of instrumental marches and dances, of which nearly a dozen are his.

His legacy lies in the breadth of his craft, which was unusual among American musicians of his generation. As a psalmodist he composed both in the native idiom of New England and in a more Europeanised style, and he also wrote for instruments with notable skill.