[1] Skilton was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1889.
[2] From that year until 1891 he taught languages at a preparatory school in Newburgh, New York; while there, he studied composition with Dudley Buck and organ with Harry Rowe Shelley.
Returning to the United States, he became director of music at the Salem Academy and College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in which position he served until 1896.
Some of his piano pieces, including a solo piano arrangement of the "War Dance" from "Suite Primeval," (possibly the arrangement by Carl A. Preyer referenced in the full score of Suite Primeval[3]) may be found in two compilations of Indianist music released by Naxos Records on the Marco Polo label.
[5][6] During the acoustic era, Columbia Phonograph Company issued Part I of the suite, "Deer Dance" and "War Dance," played by a house orchestra on A6131; the orchestral score of the Suite Primeval indicates that Pathé Freres Phonograph Company published an acoustic orchestral recording of the same movements and that Columbia published the "Flute Serenade" as well.
80692, performed by its dedicatee, the Zoellner Quartet,[3] and electrically recorded 78 RPM issue in which Howard Hanson led the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra, Victor red seal no.