{{Short description|American businessman (1906–1987)}} {{for|the Canadian fascist |Paul Fromm (white supremacist)}} {{Use American English|date=March 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Paul Fromm | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1906|09|28}} | birth_place = Kitzingen, Germany | death_date = {{death date and age|1987|07|04|1906|09|28}} | death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | occupation = Wine merchant<br>Arts patron | known_for = Founder of the Fromm Music Foundation<br>Patron of contemporary classical music | spouse = Erika Fromm }}
'''Paul Fromm''' (September 28, 1906 – July 4, 1987) was a Jewish Chicago wine merchant and performing arts patron through the '''Fromm Music Foundation'''.<ref name="Time">{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865368,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081214122922/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865368,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 14, 2008|title=Music: Rescuer of Necktie Salesmen|date=23 July 1956|accessdate=25 August 2017|via=www.time.com}}</ref> The ''Organum for Paul Fromm'' was composed by John Harbison in his honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2420&State_2874=2&workId_2874=24229|title=John Harbison - Organum for Paul Fromm (1981) - Music Sales Classical|website=www.schirmer.com|accessdate=25 August 2017}}</ref>
==Early life== Born in Kitzingen, Germany to a prominent family of vintners, Fromm was an early supporter of contemporary classical music in that country after he was exposed to Stravinsky's ''Rite of Spring'' in the early 1920s. He attended concerts at the Donaueschingen Festival further deepening his appreciation of the genre.<ref name="harvard.edu">[http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~musicdpt/fromm.html#history ] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070629113823/http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~musicdpt/fromm.html |date=2007-06-29 }}</ref> A Jew, he was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1938 and immigrated to the United States where he settled in Chicago where he co-founded a wine importing firm, the Geeting and Fromm Corporation in 1939 and then founded the Great Lakes Wine Company in 1943.<ref name="harvard.edu"/>
==Patronage== By 1952, his business was sufficiently well established to allow him to focus on establishing the Fromm Music Foundation,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/295.html|title=Classical Music|website=www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org|accessdate=25 August 2017}}</ref> which financially supporting young composers through grants awarded on the recommendation of its staff of musicians and experts. Fromm's protégés include Benjamin Lees, Ben Weber and Elvin Epstein.<ref name="Time"/>
A "Paul Fromm Concert" of contemporary classical music is performed annually at the University of Chicago in his memory.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://magazine.uchicago.edu/9502/Feb95Events.html|title=Events |website=University of Chicago Magazine |date=February 1995 |accessdate=25 August 2017}}</ref> The Paul Fromm Award is given annually by the Tanglewood Music Center in his name. During the period 1984-89, Earle Brown, then president of the Fromm Music Foundation, recommended many American composers for commissions including Daniel Asia, David Lang, William Susman, Henry Brant and Steve Reich.
Paul Fromm was married to University of Chicago psychology professor and writer Erika Fromm whom he met in Germany in 1936 and married in 1938 shortly before emigrating to the United States.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://chronicle.uchicago.edu/030612/fromm.shtml|title=Fromm, challenged Freud, helped pioneer hypnosis|website=chronicle.uchicago.edu|accessdate=25 August 2017}}</ref>
Fromm's 1966 article "A Contemporary Role for American Music Libraries"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fromm |first=Paul |date=1966 |title=A Contemporary Role for American Music Libraries |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/832221 |journal=Perspectives of New Music |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=141–142|doi=10.2307/832221 |jstor=832221 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> inspired the major compendium of Boston-area composers and compositions called the Boston Composers Project.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Boston composers project : a bibliography of contemporary music |date=1983 |publisher=MIT Press |others=Linda Solow Blotner, Mary Wallace Davidson, Brenda Chasen Goldman, Geraldine Ostrove, Boston Area Music Libraries |isbn=0-262-02198-6 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |oclc=9576366}}</ref>
==See also== *20th-century classical music
==References== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20081214122922/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865368,00.html Rescuer of Necktie Salesmen], ''Time Magazine'', July 23, 1956 *[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/06/obituaries/paul-fromm-classical-music-patron-is-dead.html?pagewanted=1 Paul Fromm, Classical-music Patron, is Dead], ''The New York Times'', John Rockwell, July 6, 1987 {{reflist}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20140827120923/http://www.music.fas.harvard.edu/fromm.html Fromm Music Foundation] *[https://www.bruceduffie.com/fromm.html Interview with Paul Fromm], Bruce Duffie, April 9, 1986
{{Laurel Leaf Award}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fromm, Paul}} Category:1906 births Category:1987 deaths Category:People from Kitzingen Category:20th-century American businesspeople Category:American people of German-Jewish descent Category:Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Category:Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Category:20th-century classical music Category:20th-century American philanthropists
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