Music of Philadelphia and actress. Benjamin Franklin was also a musician, a guitar teacher and inventor of musical instruments like the glass armonica. In 1784 Andrew Adgate organized the Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music, renamed the Uranian Academy (1787–1800). The school was the center of the city's choral music scene during the latter part of the 18th century. The earliest known performance of a musical drama in Philadelphia was Colley Cibber’s "Flora, or Hob in the Well", a ballad opera performed by a touring opera company from England in 1754. In 1757 Francis Hopkinson mounted an elaborate production of Thomas Arne’s
Dennis James (musician) He would never attempt to modernize the feeling of the period by creating a score that would clash."", says Mintun. James plays the Franklin glass armonica and has collected other vitreous music instruments including several Francis Hopkinson Smith's 19th century Grand Harmonicons, one of the few surviving Beyer Glass-cords from 1786, and modern glass instruments such as verrophone, the cristal d' Baschet, along with a wide variety of glass flutes and glass bells. He is currently constructing an expanded version of the French Bouteillophone creating a touring continuo instrument for 18th c. ensemble repertoire. James played his glass instruments on