Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. This week, Texas music scholar Gary Hartman talks about a world renowned musician who chose to make Texas his home.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Sunday at precisely 6:04 p.m. on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you. And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KXT’s The Paul Slavens Show, heard Sunday night’s at 8.

• Click the player to listen to the podcast:

• Expanded online version:

Carl Venth was born in Cologne, Germany, on Feb. 16, 1860. By the time he was 19, he began touring Europe and worked as a concertmaster in Paris. Venth moved to the United States in 1880, touring and performing in Boston, New York and St. Louis. In 1908, he settled in Texas, where he served as Dean of the School of Fine Arts at the Texas Woman’s College in Fort Worth and conducted the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Carl Venth composed and published dozens of musical pieces and served as head of the Music Department at Trinity University in San Antonio from 1931 until his death in 1938.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll meet a child prodigy whose tastes ranged from classical music to fiddle hoedowns