Frederick Shepherd Converse (January 5, 1871 – June 8, 1940), was an American composer of classical music, whose works include four operas and five symphonies.

[1] Converse had already received instruction in piano playing, and the study of musical theory was a most important part of his college course.

After six months of business life, for which his father had intended him, he returned to the study of composing, Carl Baermann being his teacher in piano, and George W. Chadwick in composition.

He then spent two years at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich, where he studied with Joseph Rheinberger, completing the course in 1898.

[5] Even though he was firmly committed to composing in the late Romantic idiom of his European contemporaries, his works often dealt with American subjects.

The lush orchestral scoring of his program music has been compared to the early style of Richard Strauss.