John Knowles Paine was an American composer born in Portland, Maine in 1839 who began his musical career as an organist and composer in Boston during the mid-19th century, working primarily within the classical tradition. Rooted in the German Romantic organ and orchestral style, his choral, orchestral and organ works and his appointment as Harvard's first professor of music contributed to the development of a professional classical-music infrastructure in the United States.
