George Loder

George Loder (1816 – 15 July 1868) was an English conductor, and composer of orchestral music, operas and songs. During his career he lived in England, America and Australia; he conducted the first U.S. performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

Life George Patrick Henry Loder was born in Bath, Somerset in 1816, son of George Loder, a flautist, and wife Mary Cook, who had married at St James, Bath, Somerset, on 18 December 1815. Loder was baptized in the Chapel of St Mary, Walcot, Bath, on 14 November 1816. His sister was the pianist and composer Kate Loder, and his uncle, the violinist John David Loder, was father of the composer Edward Loder. His mother, Mary, died in 1821. His father remarried two years later to Frances Kirkham.

In 1836 he visited America, living for some years in Baltimore, and in 1844 he was principal of the New York Vocal Institute, and member of the Philharmonic and Vocal Societies, which he had helped to establish there. He played the double-bass in the Philharmonic Society for five seasons, and sometimes conducted the orchestra.

He conducted a performance of his overture Marmion at a concert of the Philharmonic Society at the Apollo, which was reviewed: "The composition is one of more than ordinary excellence, and if it is not distinguished by originality of ideas, it certainly deserves the highest encomiums for the excellence of its instrumentation."

About 1856 Loder went to Adelaide, South Australia, with the soprano Anna Bishop, and remained in Australia as conductor of William Saurin Lyster's opera troupe. and was republished as The Philadelphia and New York Glee Book in 1864. He published The Middle Voice, 12 solfeggi, in London in 1860, and various separate songs by him were published in England and America.