San Francisco County
J. H. DOHRMANN
J. H. DOHRMANN, of San Francisco, was born in Hessia, Germany, April 29, 1840. He began his study of
music in early childhood, when only six years of age, as did also his brothers
and sisters. While attending school he would run home at recess to
practice, and after leaving his native town he entered the Seminary at Hamburg,
making a special study of music and the languages, and taking a full course of
four years. Dr. William Volckmar, the eminent
organist and composer, was president of this noted seminary, and was a personal
friend of Mr. Dohrmann until the former’s
death in 1889.
Prof.
Dohrmann having a brother in California, the parents
and family decided to emigrate to America, coming via
Cape Horn, arriving here in 1856, after a voyage of nine months. The
following year they came to Oakland, where he, our subject, began teaching
music, the children of Governor Alvarado being among his pupils. The
parents bought a farm in Contra Costa county, but Mr. Dohrmann, not liking ranch life, went to Sacramento, a year
later to San Jose, where he engaged in teaching music, and five years afterward
to San Francisco. For the past twenty-eight years he has been prominently
identified with the musical interests of this city and State. He was the
leader of the old Metropolitan Theatre, the Alhambra on Brush street, and the Shields, now the Standard. He opened
the Grand Opera House as musical conductor; was also conductor of the first
comic opera in Oakland, leader of the opera in Coliseum, of the Winter Garden
Opera Company, and Tivoli Opera House, San Francisco. He has done much in
the way of musical composition, and enjoys an enviable reputation in the
profession.
Transcribed
by Donna L. Becker.
Source: “The Bay of
San Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 475-476, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2006 Donna L.
Becker.