Anthony Fountain

I was born and raised in Greenwich, CT and attended local schools. I started piano instruction at a young age, when it was discovered I had perfect pitch.

I attended Boston University School for the Arts, where I was a piano major, but did not graduate. A few years later I had another crack at higher education, this time at Columbia University, but did not graduate from there either.

I worked for four years at HMV Music Stores in all four of the Manhattan branches, and assisted in opening three of them. At the last store that was opened I was promoted to Manager and Buyer of its Classical Department.

An HMV customer who was in management at Sony Music Entertainment offered me a job in Sony’s Archives Preservation Department. I accepted and worked for 21 years at Sony, researching historic Columbia and RCA recordings, and worked with Sony engineers who were making high-resolution digital transfers from the original antique sources.

Becoming increasingly disenchanted with New York, and after visiting a friend who lived in Taos, NM, I decided to live there as well and took early retirement. I keep my hand in music by playing the organ at a church where the traditional Latin Mass is celebrated. I also write, when asked, the occasional recording review for the Qobuz streaming service.

My musical interests are fairly broad, ranging from the earliest music of the Church to the present, but excluding atonal, twelve-tone, and serial music, Minimalism, etc. That doesn’t rule out all music of the last and present century, perhaps for me topped by Olivier Messiaen, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Elgar, and Walton—you get my drift. On this side of the pond, Charles Ives ranks highly with me (I was in the chorus for the celebration in Danbury, CT of his 100th birthday. Bernstein, Tilson Thomas, and the American Symphony Orchestra were among the participants). Most liturgical music, both Catholic and Protestant, also is of interest to me.