Max Pottag papers

Max P. Pottag was born in Forst, Germany, on June 22, 1876. As a child, Pottag had a natural inclination for music. He would play with a toy violin and accordion, and by age 14, he began to play the trumpet with the city band. After a year, he changed to the french horn, which would become his instrument of expertise. He entered the Leipzig Conservatory in 1899 as a scholarship student and graduated with honors in 1901.

Pottag played with a number of prolific ensembles in his lifetime. At 19, he was playing for Kaiser Wilhelm in the band of the German Navy in Wilhelmshaven. He also played as first horn in the Hamburg Symphony before emigrating to the United States. While in the US, he played second horn in the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and eventually retired in 1947 after playing for 40 years in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. While in Chicago, he was also associated with the Little Symphony Orchestra of Chicago and taught horn at Northwestern University. He also composed and arranged many pieces of music and designed horns for Reynolds Musical Instruments. He was cited by Ball State University as a "Master Musician, Master Teacher, Teacher of Master Teachers."

Pottag died in November 1970 in Indianapolis at the age of 94.