17 Facts About Ferdinand Sorenson

Ferdinand Sorenson was a prominent music educator in the US state of Oregon as well as a conductor, composer, dance instructor and performer.

Originally from Grenaa, Denmark, Sorenson came to the United States as an infant with his parents, Lars and Matilda Sorenson.

At an early age Ferdinand Sorenson played the violin and brass instruments to join in family and community orchestras.

When Ferdinand Sorenson went to Salt Lake City in 1898, he continued his violin studies with Willard Weihe.

In Salt Lake City, Ferdinand Sorenson played in his first symphony and opera orchestras and met his friend and mentor in music and dancing, Mose Christensen.

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In 1905, Mose Christensen and his group of musicians in Boise, Idaho helped Ferdinand Sorenson collect enough money to travel to New York, where he studied cello with the William Ebann at the New York College of Music.

In New York City Ferdinand Sorenson played the cello in the orchestra of Walter Damrosch and in shows starring David Warfield and silent film star Alla Nazimova.

When he returned to the West, Ferdinand Sorenson played briefly in the Boise Symphony Orchestra under Mose Christensen's direction and was briefly principal cellist in the Portland Symphony Orchestra under David Rosebrook.

Ferdinand Sorenson married in 1909 and moved to Spokane, Washington in 1910.

Ferdinand Sorenson taught music, dancing and conducted a theater orchestra in Spokane.

In 1919, Chuck Whitehead built his own dance hall in Spokane, the Whitehead Dancing Palace, where Ferdinand Sorenson started his dancing school after having graduated from Mose Christensen's dance school in Portland, Oregon.

In Portland, Ferdinand Sorenson began playing in the Portland Symphony again when Willem van Hoogstraten began as conductor of the orchestra.

Ferdinand Sorenson played in the KGW, KOIN and other radio orchestras over the years.

Ferdinand Sorenson conducted the Ferdinand Sorenson Concert Orchestra and the Inter-Community Orchestra in Longview, Washington.

Besides his private students, Ferdinand Sorenson taught over the years as an adjunct professor at Pacific University, Lewis and Clark College, Portland State College, and the University of Oregon.

Ferdinand Sorenson conducted the student orchestra at Marylhurst University and the student band at Pacific University.

Ferdinand Sorenson was still teaching privately and at Portland State College when he died in December 1966 at the age of 84.