William Mason (composer)

William Mason (January 24, 1829 – July 14, 1908) was an American composer and pianist and a member of a musical family.

After a successful debut at the Boston Academy of Music, he went to Europe in 1849; there he was the first American piano student of Franz Liszt and Ignaz Moscheles.

He became the leader of a chamber ensemble based in New York that introduced many works of Robert Schumann and other famous Europeans to Americans during the Civil War era and beyond, at a time when classical music still had little specifically American identity.

The American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) dedicated his second piano sonata, Op.

This article about a United States composer born in the 19th century is a stub.