Mary Wood Chase was born 21 January 1868, in Brooklyn, New York, to Alonzo M. Chace and Cordelia Wood. She would become one of the more prominent concert pianists in the United States, and one of the most influential music educators of the early 20th Century. Chase's father Alonzo enjoyed a less than illustrious childhood, growing up the son of a Quaker milkman in Providence, Rhode Island. However, his mother was Lucretia Cornell, the sister of Ezra Cornell, founder of Western Union Telegraph, and of the eponymous university in Ithaca, New York, that bears his name. Therefore, as a nephew of Ezra Cornell, Alonzo Chace did indeed enjoy some privileges as he pursued his studies and developed his career with the help of his uncle, and also as he established a family of his own. Not only was he Ezra Cornell's nephew, Alonzo also became his brother-in-law when he married Cordelia Wood, the younger sister of Ezra's wife Mary Ann Wood. This also meant that Mary Wood Chase was both Ezra Cornell's grand niece and his niece. The family ties between them were especially tight.

Uncle Ezra funded much of his nephew's professional education while Alonzo was studying law in Albany, New York. Borrowing money from his uncle to set up his law practice and law library, Alonzo was an attorney for a time in Gloversville, New York. He then enrolled at Cornell University in 1868, the year it opened for classes, became an Instructor of Chemistry at his alma mater in 1870, while still a student, and then graduated in 1872. Seeking his fortune in the West, by the 1890s, Alonzo was living in Redfield, South Dakota, the president of a bank. Having done quite well for himself and his family despite his humble beginnings, Alonzo Chace eventually settled in Hollywood, California, and finally in Beverly Hills, where he died in 1930. Her father's success, and Uncle Ezra's patronage of his education and career, provided Mary Wood Chase with financial security and the opportunity to follow her dreams.

Tutored by her father, Chase passed the entrance exams for Cornell University when she was but 14 years old, but decided instead to pursue an education in music. She received her first piano instruction from her mother, and then enjoyed a year of studies in 1883 with George Barlow Penny, then a student at Cornell University who would later successively become the Dean of the Fine Arts Schools of the University of Kansas and then Washburn University, and founder of the Rochester Conservatory of Music in New York. In 1884, at the age of 16, Chase began her studies in piano under Sarah Eliot Newman at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world. She graduated from the Artist's Course in Piano Forte in 1887, after making her debut as a pianist at the Boston Music Hall in 1886. Concluding her studies in Boston, Chase became a teacher of music in Winona, Wisconsin from 1887-1889, and then Director of Music at Logan College in Russellville, Kentucky from 1889-1893.

By 1893, Chase had departed the United States for Europe where she continued her studies in Berlin under the Dutch composer and pianist Oscar Raif, becoming his personal assistant for two years while there. After her return in August 1896, Chase helped popularize Raif's music in America, and wrote several articles about his technique for music journals. Additionally, she set herself apart as the first in the United States to perform a piano concerto by Norwegian composer Christian Sinding. Chase was also a virtuoso of the works of Chopin, which she played with vigor in her many concerts. So great was her love of Chopin that she dubbed him, "The King of Composers on the Piano."

Although born in New York, Chase spent most of her professional career in the West, and settled for a long period of time in Chicago, Illinois, where she kept a studio in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue. By 1901, she was being managed by Hannah & Hamlin, and advertised herself in The Musical Courier as a "Piano Virtuosa" available for concerts and engagements.

For three seasons at the turn of the 20th Century, Chase served as the pianist accompanying the famous Kneisel Quartet. She also accompanied the equally well-known Spiering Quartet. As soloist, Chase played piano during the 1902-1903 season for the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, the precursor to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of the world-famous conductor Theodore Thomas. It was during this period that Chase became the first pianist in America to perform Sinding's Concerto for Pianoforte in D Flat, on the afternoons of 27 and 28 February 1902, in the Chicago Auditorium Theatre on Wells Drive, backed by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra. The Chicago Tribune said of her performance, "Miss Mary Wood Chase who was the piano soloist in the concerto, had set herself no easy task, but she attacked it with a courage and determination commanding admiration." And the InterOcean remarked, "Miss Chase played well ... with confidence, considerable power, fluent technique, and a good round tone."

A highly successful concert pianist in her own right, Chase performed solo shows across America, and pursued a heavy recital schedule. Audiences were consistently won over by her performances and she was repeatedly invited to return for encore appearances. In 1905, she was touted as "one of the most gifted and finely educated pianists in the country," by The Musical Leader and Concert Goer.

From her studio in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Chase opened the Mary Wood Chase School of Music in 1906, which would eventually be consolidated into the Columbia School of Music in the 1920s. Eric DeLamarter, a composer, organist, and ultimately conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was one of Chase's most notable students out of the legion of pianists and musicians she taught during her career, supplying the nation with school music directors, church organists, composers, and a general increase in the appreciation of fine music throughout the country.

Chase did not limit her knowledge and experience to only the benefit of her own students however, and in 1910, she published Natural Laws in Piano Technique. Chase dedicated the book to Sarah Eliot Newman, her first piano instructor at the New England Conservatory. And, acknowledging her good fortune at having had the world-class education she enjoyed, and likely also an aside to the motto of her Great Uncle Ezra Cornell's University, Chase included the following shibboleth in the introductory pages of her book: "There is no royal road to learning, but the highways are better paved than ever before."

What was otherwise an idyllic musical life was violently interrupted by a bizarre event that occurred in 1911. While preparing for an upcoming recital, Chase was attacked in her private studio at 5354 Winthrop Avenue in Chicago, when two men forced their way through a door that had been left ajar by her roommates when they left for a walk. The intruders tied Chase's hands behind her and blindfolded her, and according to one report, she was "beaten, choked, gagged and rendered unconscious." Apparently, the ruffians were common robbers who were hoping to steal valuables, and they were chased away by Chase's roommates when they returned and discovered the ongoing assault. No other information about the attack or its ramifications has been found.

Chase's recitals became less frequent during the decade from 1910-1920, as she turned her attention primarily to her music school. In the summers, Chase left the heat of the city of Chicago behind. She kept a summer cottage she called "Blighty" outside of Ludington, Michigan, where she founded the Mary Wood Chase School of Musical Arts in 1912. The school ran from July to September, and was part of the Epworth Assembly Summer School on the shores of Lake Michigan.

By 1915, the Mary Wood Chase School of Music in downtown Chicago had become so successful that 25 faculty were providing "instruction in vocal and instrumental music." As her school continued to grow in its success, Chase relocated to 64 E. Jackson inside the Loop, to the Lyon & Healy Building, which was equipped with its own first-rate Concert Hall on the first floor, "one of the most perfectly and comfortably equipped concert halls in the country."

Five years later, as Chase's already stellar reputation continued to grow as one of the leading teachers in the country, and the students who graduated from her school continued to impress audiences everywhere, by 1920, the faculty of the Mary Wood Chase School had increased to 37 teachers to accommodate the demand. Increasingly, the trusted brand Chase had created was becoming an attractive take-over opportunity.

In the 1920s, Chase peregrinated between Chicago, Michigan, and also Los Angeles, where her father and mother were living. By the mid-1920s, Chase spent an increasing amount of time in California, where she often stayed with her father Alonzo Chace who had settled into a home in Hollywood, and later Beverly Hills. She finally moved to Los Angeles by 1927.

Chase continued to perform the occasional concert well into the 1920s, even playing for radio audiences from the studios of WJAZ Chicago in 1923, being heard from as far away as New York City, but seems to have ceased live recitals by the 1930s. Although she lived a very long life, in 1930, Chase was already 62 years old, and perhaps her age had some influence on her apparent decision to cease her recital tours. However, according to the research of Dr. Bethany McLemore Stewart, a graduate student at the University of Texas, Austin, who delved extensively into Chase's life, "family members expressed concerns about her fortitude and familial obligations, which effectively ended her career."

Considering that Chase's mother Cordelia Wood, and father Alonzo Chace both struggled with senility in their later years before both succumbing to a cerebral hemorrhages, caring for them seems to have been the overriding factor for Chase's absence from the stage. In 1926, Chase sold the Mary Wood Chase School of Music to the Columbia School of Music so that she could care for her ailing mother, who died the next year. After her father died in 1930, Chase remained in his home in Beverly Hills, until she move to nearby Westwood sometime later. She did, however, continue to visit her summer cottage Blighty in Michigan after her parents' deaths. But, not much is known of her life after this time.

Mary Wood Chase died 22 March 1963, at the age of 95, in her home at 10624 Wellworth Avenue in Los Angeles. She is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

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Copyright 2020, Jeffrey B. Chace