Woman of the Century/Amy Fay

FAY, Miss Amy, musician and author, born on a plantation on the Mississippi river, eighty AMY KAY. miles from New Orleans, La., 21st May, 1844. She is the daughter of Rev. Charles Fay, of Cambridge, Mass., and Charlotte Emily Fay, a daughter of the late Bishop John Henry Hopkins, of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Vermont. Both families were musical, and Mrs. Fay was a pianist of remarkable gifts. The family consisted of six daughters and one son, and Amy was the third of the children, all of whom were singers and players. Amy showed remarkable musical talents at an early age. At the age of four years she played airs by ear and composed little airs, which she rendered on the piano. At five years of age she began to study regularly under her mother's tuition. The family removed to St Albans, Vt., in 1848. Amy studied Latin, Greek, French and German with her father, and music, drawing and composition with her mother. Her education was liberal and careful. Her mother died in 1856, and Amy went to live with her married sister in Cambridge, Mass. There she began the study of Bach with Prof. J. K. Paine, and piano with Otto Dressel, in the New England Conservatory of Music. She next studied piano technique with Prof. Pychowski. of New York. In 1869 she went to Europe. In Berlin she studied with Carl Tausig one year and with Prof. Kullak three years. In j 873 she went to Weimar and studied in Liszt's school. She studied again with Kullak and Deppe, and finished with a second course under Liszt. In 1875 she returned to the United States. She made her debut in New York with the Mendelssohn Glee Club. She settled in Boston, where she gave a number of concerts, and was the first to add piano concerts to the programmes in the Worcester festivals. In 1878 she settled in Chicago, Ill., where she now lives. Her concerts, styled "Piano Conversations," are very popular. Her principal literary work is her book, "Music Study-in Germany," published on the suggestion of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and translated into German on the request of Liszt It is a standard book in the United States, Germany and England. Miss Fay has been a successful piano teacher as well as concertist. She is the founder of the Artists' Concert Club, of Chicago, a club composed of musicians. She is one of the students whose names appear in Liszt's own roll of his best pupils.