Timeline of Music in The United States To 1819 - 1769

1769

• A concert is organized by John Gualdo in Philadelphia; this consisted of a wide range of pieces, much of which was composed by Gualdo himself, leading some historians to refer to this as the first "composers'-concert" in the United States.
• Roman Catholic missionary activity begins to "severely devastate" the civilizations of central coast and southern California, bringing new forms of Roman Catholic music to the indigenous peoples of California.
• In Isaac Bickerstaffe's comic opera The Padlock, the actor Lewis Hallam the Younger performs "Dear Heart! What a Terrible Life I Am Led", the first documentation of a white stage presentation of an African American-styled song.
• John Harris of Boston becomes the first spinet-maker in the United States.
• An anonymous manuscript published by John Boyles of Boston, Abstract of Geminiani's Art of Playing on the Violin is the first known instrumental education book in the future United States.