Karl Hoschna

Hoschna was born on August 16, 1876 in Kuschwarda, Bohemia, and educated in Austria at the Vienna Conservatory of Music, specializing in the oboe. He graduated with honors and became an oboist in the Austrian army band. He emigrated to the United States in 1896 and joined the Victor Herbert orchestra as an oboe soloist.  Hoschna abandoned the oboe because he believed the vibration of the oboe's double-reed was affecting his mind, and became a copyist for the Witmark Music Publishing Co., where he selected songs for publication and was an arranger.  With Otto Harbach, Harry B. Smith, Charles Noel Douglas, Mark Swan, Benjamin Hapgood Burt, William C. Duncan, and others, he collaborated on a series of Broadway musical comedies, which included Three Twins (1908) and Madame Sherry (1910).  Hoschna died at the height of his powers in 1911.