[2] 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.
[3] 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.
Fromm's protégés include Benjamin Lees, Ben Weber and Elvin Epstein.
[1] A "Paul Fromm Concert" of contemporary classical music is performed annually at the University of Chicago in his memory.
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.