Charles Wakefield Cadman
Charles Wakefield Cadman (December 24, 1881 – December 30, 1946) was an American composer who was a member of the American Theosophical Society.
Personal life
Musical career
Theosophical Society involvement
Cadman was admitted to the Pittsburgh Lodge of the American Theosophical Society on September 28, 1907. During his years in the Society, he moved to Denver and Ft. Collins, Colorado, and eventually to Los Angeles. His membership became inactive on June 30, 1922.[1]
When the Krotona Brotherhood of Art formed in 1917, Cadman took a leadership role.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content In 1918 Cadman was living at Krotona Institute of Theosophy in Hollywood, California when he and Camille Zekwer composed music for a theatrical version of The Light of Asia. The play ran for 35 performances in the Krotona Stadium that could seat 800 people, and also in Beachwood Canyon. Walter Hampden played the role of Buddha, and Ruth St. Denis performed with her Denishawn dancers.[2]
Lodge programs often featured presentations of Cadman's compositions by other Theosophists: his longtime collaborator Nelle Eberhart Richmond of Pittsburgh, who wrote lyrics for "From the Land of the Sky Blue Water," "At Dawning," and other compositions[3]; by baritone J. Henry Orme, and Houston Lodge's operatic baritone Emmet Lennon.
Musical compositions
Notes
- ↑ Membership Ledger Cards. Microfilm roll 2. Theosophical Society in America Archives.
- ↑ Catherine Parsons Smith, Making Music in Los Angeles: Transforming the Popular, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 135.
- ↑ "Old and Loyal Member" The American Theosophist 32.12 (December, 1944), 286.