GUILMETTE, Charles [Alexander] (b ?Dumfries, Scotland, 20 March ?1823; d 1342 Washington Square, Boston, 18 June 1880)

This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century singer Doctor Charles Alexander Guilmette. In July of 1855, Guilmette had a variation on his diet of Mancunian concerts and his duties as choirmaster at Hulme. In November 1855 he announced the opening of a vocal Academy at 15a St Ann's Square in Manchester, and in December he was involved in the premiere of Mr J Thorne Harris's new sacred cantata based on the 103rd Psalm. Among the concert performances and the operatic ventures, Guilmette took part in several ephemeral new works: George Henry Curtis and William Cullen Bryant's The Forest Melody, Dr Ward's opera Flora, or The Gipsy's Warning, and Robert Stoepel's Hiawatha (21 February 1859). Around 1861, Charles shifted his headquarters from New York to Boston, and it was there, during the 1860s and into the 1870s, that he was most frequently seen in oratorio performances, in concert and singing in the local King's Chapel.