Francis Fairman

Francis Fairman (b. 1923) was born in Annapolis MD. Growing up in a musical family (his father played the violin, his mother the piano, his brother the trumpet, and his sister the violin) Fairman was exposed to music at an early age; he had his first piano lesson in Pittsburgh at the age of 5, and was soon able to sight read and play Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique Op. 13. At age 10, his family moved to Philadelphia, where he continued music lessons under Ms. Gertrude Hamilton, a Curtis Institute graduate.

During his teenage years, Fairman started to play the bassoon with Mr. Greuner of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra as his teacher and played in his high school orchestra. During this period, he played Mendelssohn’s Concerto in G Minor with the Curtis Institute Orchestra conducted by Mr. Cox, and performed with his brother in a Philadelphia-area dance band until they had to enter military service during World War II. After serving in the armed forces, he took an engineering-type job to earn a living wage while continuing to work on his music.

Since 1993, Fairman has devoted himself to composing symphonic music. In 1995 he became an apprentice for approximately ten years to William Thomas McKinley of Boston, a noted musician and composer, to gain more knowledge in the world of composing. Under McKinley’s Master Musician’s Collective organization, Fairman composed several symphonic-type pieces which were played and recorded by European symphony orchestras.