Carl Venth was a German-American composer, violinist, conductor, music educator, and scholar. He was a leadingclassical music figure in Texas in the first half of the twentieth century and was one of the early music directors of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Venth was born in Cologne, Germany, the son of Carl Venth and Friderika von Turkowitz. He began violin study with his father at age 9. He was educated at the Friedrich Wilhelm-Gymnasium; at the Cologne Conservatory, where he studied violin with George Japha and composition with Ferdinand Hiller, Gustav Jensen, and Otto Klauwell; and at the Brussels Conservatory, where he studied violin with Henryk Wieniawski and from which he was graduated in 1877.