Edwin Olin Downes, better known as Olin Downes, was an American music critic, known as "Sibelius's Apostle" for his championship of the music of Jean Sibelius. As critic of The New York Times, he exercised considerable influence on musical opinion, although many of his judgments have not stood the test of time.

The National Conservatory of Music of America was an institution for higher education in music founded in 1885 in New York City by Jeannette Meyers Thurber. The conservatory was officially declared defunct by the state of New York in 1952, although for all practical pedagogical purposes, it had ceased to function much earlier than that. Between its founding and about 1920, however, the conservatory played an important part in the education and training of musicians in the United States, and for decades Thurber attempted to turn it into a federally-supported national conservatory in a European style. A number of prominent names are associated with the institution, including that of Victor Herbert and Antonín Dvořák, director of the conservatory from Sep. 27, 1892 to 1895.