David Kennedy

David Kennedy (1825–1886) was a Scottish church musician and concert giver.

Life Born in Perth on 15 April 1825, he was son of a weaver who was also precentor of the United Secession Church there. At 16 he was apprenticed to a painter, while also being trained by his father in music, and in 1845 became precentor of the South Kirk, Perth. During 1848 he worked at his trade in Edinburgh and London, and returned to Perth to set up in business.

Kennedy then obtained a precentorship in Edinburgh, and in 1859 began there a series of weekly concerts. Short concert tours in Scotland followed in 1860 and 1861, and in 1862 he made his first appearance in London, at the Hanover Square Rooms. Between December 1862 and May 1863 he gave a hundred concerts in the Egyptian Hall; and in 1864 and 1865 he was again in London, singing and reading parts of Waverley. In 1887 the Edinburgh Burns Club began to raise funds for a monument to three Scottish vocalists, John Templeton, John Wilson, and Kennedy.

Family With his second wife, Elizabeth Fraser, Kennedy had 11 children, including the singer and folk-song collector Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (who married the mathematician Alexander Yule Fraser).

David's youngest daughter, Jessie Henderson Kennedy (d. 1937), married the pianist and composer Tobias Matthay. In 1881 Kennedy's son James and daughters Kate and Lizzie (baritone, contralto and soprano respectively) died in the burning of the Théâtre municipal of Nice, France.

His grandson was the psychologist David Kennedy Fraser FRSE named in his honour.