November 18th, 1912-October 17th, 1998 As the remarkable president of CMA for 42 years of its 79-year history, Dr. Theodore Charles Stone has left us a fine legacy of advocacy in the cause of excellence in music.
Theodore Charles Stone was a native of Gainesville, Texas, the son of Samuel William and Rosa Houston Stone. He was orphaned at an early age and, along with his six brothers and sisters, was taken in by his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Mary Houston.
To help support himself while attending Gainesville’s Booker T. Washington School, he obtained a job in the household of German organist and music teacher Mrs. Otto Vaeth where, every day after school as he performed his chores, he was surrounded by the sounds of classical music. Mrs. Vaeth, noting his interest in music, began giving him piano lessons.
Upon reaching high school, his musical experiences enabled him to participate in music activities. After graduation, he attended Huston-Tillotson College (formerly Samuel Houston College) in Austin, Texas, where he earned solo parts in the college choir and was active at Wesley Methodist Church.
Dr. Stone moved to Chicago in 1932 to begin studies at Chicago Musical College (now a part of Roosevelt University), where he came under the influence of artists such as Lotte Lehman and Mary Garden.
After completing his work at Chicago Musical College, he began teaching at Marcy Center on Chicago’s West Side. However, that teaching career was interrupted when he accepted a scholarship to study at Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Stone was the first African American to study at Sibelius Academy, singing before Scandinavian royalty. The outbreak of World War II forced him to return to the United States, but his Scandinavian sojourn resulted in his becoming national director of public relations for the International Sibelius Society.
As a concert baritone he appeared in recitals on stages throughout the United States, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Virgin Islands. These activities led him into related fields, one of the most important being that of journalism. His journalism career began inauspiciously when he was forced to compose his own press releases to promote his concerts and those of his friends. This led to his preparing critiques, first, for the Chicago Bee and, later, for the Metropolitan Post, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Chicago Defender where he eventually succeeded the newspaper’s art critic, Grace Thompkins. Then in 1961 he joined The New Crusader as managing editor and religion and art critic.
As founder and director of the Musical Arts Bureau, Dr. Stone provided a platform for coaching, promoting, and presenting new talents as well as mature artists, including his own annual February solo recitals. In 1980 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Religious Music by the McKinley Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. He has also served as director of music at Parkway Community Center.
Dr. Stone, an inveterate concert-goer, was seen at all downtown concert venues, and he has moved in the company of many of the great musicians of the present as well as the past. His services were in great demand by religious, social, and civic organizations as a high fashion model and commentator.
Over the years Dr. Stone held a number of positions in National Association of Negro Musicians. He served as director of the Central Region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio), member of the board, vice president, and from 1967 to 1974 he served as president for the full time allotted by the association’s rules.
Dr. Stone was outstanding in his leadership of the Chicago Music Association, which was organized in 1919 by Mrs. Nora Dougias Holt in association with some of the prominent musicians of that time. Dr. Stone served as president from 1954 to 1996.