Beginnings

In 1879, two of the young female piano students of Professor Eban A. Kelly were inspired to suggest to him that they form a music club, and thus began the Chopin Club of Rhode Island, one of the oldest such clubs in America. The twelve charter members, initially all pianists and all women, met every two weeks from October to July, holding in the spring an annual concert to which guests were invited. The first such concert took place on April 6th, 1880: the program consisted of several four-hand pieces, a two-piano rendition of Chopin, and Military Marches by Chopin and Schubert played by eight hands; Mrs. Buffington, a guest, sang Gottschalk’s “O Loving Heart,” and “Let Me Dream Again” by Sir Arthur Sullivan. In the second year a violinist was invited to join, and later a vocalist. In 1892, Robert Bonner, another prominent Providence musician and teacher, began a course in Harmony and Form for the Club, which ran on alternate Saturday evenings until 1897.

By 1906 the group had grown beyond its original limit of fifteen members and the number of meetings was reduced to one per month. “Gentleman's Night” (later changed to “Guest Night”) first took place in the winter of 1912; associate members were invited to join; and Musical Teas were added. Meanwhile, the Annual Recital had grown considerably. According to Miss Emma Welch, one of the Club’s founding members, “The bevy of young ladies in dainty costumes was always an attractive sight” but since every member performed, it was suggested they should provide ambulances to carry home the exhausted listeners! In 1926, the Annual Recital, now called “President's Day,” took place in the ballroom of the Biltmore hotel in downtown Providence, with several hundred in attendance. The following year, men were invited to join the Club. Soon after, a Junior Chopin Club was formed, then a Juvenile.

Mary K. Hail and the Music Mansion

Meetings were initially held in hired rooms, or sometimes “honorary members” with large houses acted as host. In 1905, some sort of rupture took place within the Club, and a splinter group formed itself into the Chaminade Club, another venerable Rhode Island institution still active today. The Chaminade’s first president was Mary K. Hail, a wealthy Rhode Island patron of the arts. In 1928, Hail built for herself a large residence on Providence’s East Side, which soon became known as the Music Mansion by virtue of its central room specifically designed to function as a concert hall. A small balcony overlooking the performance area, still visible today, probably allowed Hail to listen to meetings or rehearsals in the hall below without having to descend the stairs. Some club members still remember her sitting in an armchair during performances, just under where her portrait now hangs; the children, dressed in their finest, were taught to curtsy and bow to her after they played. When she died in 1948, she left the Mansion in trust for the use of the various music clubs in the area.

The Chopin Club Today

From these beginnings, the Chopin Club has grown and flourished: now more than one hundred active members, most of them professional musicians, give generously of their time and talents at six Musicales per year held on Sunday afternoons in the Music Mansion. Each year, the current president hires one or more guest artists for the Presidents Day Concert in April; among the featured performers have been Beverly Sills and Arthur Fiedler. The two junior clubs are likewise still very active, with members coming from all over Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Both have monthly meetings from October to May at which the members perform for each other, as well as formal recitals twice a year. Music awards are given in the younger group, and substantial scholarships granted to selected high-school seniors who plan to pursue music seriously in their higher education.

This brief history by Edith Hemenway is based chiefly on material found in the archives of the Chopin Club held at the Library of the Rhode Island Historical Society. (Edited, September 2018, by Gabe C. Alfieri, Ph.D., Club Historian.)