Mose Christensen

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Mose Christensen (1871-1920), a founder and conductor of the Oregon Symphony (then known as the Portland Symphony Orchestra) was born on February 12th 1871 in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Lars Christensen (1825-1908) had emigrated from Denmark in the early 1850s to Utah as part of the First Mormon migration. Mose' mother, Elsa Bjerregaard (1839-1911) was Lars Christensen's second wife in a plural marriage.

Mose began his musical training with his father Lars who played the violin and his mother Elsa who played piano. His brothers Chris, Frederic and Lars Peter were part of the Christensen Orchestra that traveled around northern Utah playing for dances and social functions. The Christensen bothers relocated from Brigham City to Ogden, Utah in 1890 and became partners in a dance hall to advance their music careers. In 1893 the Christensen bothers moved to Salt Lake City where they played for social dances and were part of the group of musicians that accompanied the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

After Mose married Carrier Nichols in 1898 he went to the East Coast to study with the German violinist Henry Schradieck. On returning to the West he settled in Boise, Idaho in 1901. During his early years in Boise he traveled to Boston, Massachusetts to study dancing at the M. B. Gilbert School. In Boise, Mose was a partner in the Riverside Pavilion ballroom where he carried on with the social dancing business. Besides playing in his dance orchestra he also played in string quartets and was the conductor of the Boise Philharmonic in 1908.

In about 1909 Mose and his family left Boise. Settling in Portland, Oregon Mose once again opened a dance hall and in 1910 joined the American National Association, Masters of Dancing [1] in New York City. He was elected president of the organization in 1916. In order to develop a professional approach to dance at his studio Mose brought Stefano Mascagno from Italy to Portland to teach ballet.

In 1911 Mose gathered with a number of his musician friends at his dance hall to form the Portland Symphony Orchestra on a permanent basis. Up until then the symphony concerts were only intermittent affairs and years would sometime pass with no concerts at all. Mose was the first president of the symphony, played viola and was one of the conductors on a rotating basis. Mose stopped conducting in 1918 when Carl Denton become the permanent conductor. Mose died two years latter in October 1920 at 49.

[edit] References

• Sowells, Debra. The Christensen Brothers, An American Dance Epic. Australia: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998.
• Goodrich, Frederick W. “Nearly 70 Eventful Years of Orchestral Music”. The Oregonian, November 3, 1935 page 11.