After spending 12 years as the 17th director of “The President’s Own” from 1880 to 1892, John Philip Sousa went on to form his own successful civilian band. It was during his time with the Marine Band and in the early years leading the Sousa Band that he wrote his most famous marches, earning him the title “The March King.”
This march takes its title from the 7th Regiment, 107th Infantry, of the New York National Guard. The band was led by Major Francis Sutherland, who was a former cornetist in the Sousa Band. The march debuted at the New York Hippodrome in 1922 with Sutherland’s 7th Regiment Band joining the Sousa Band on stage, and Sousa was made an honorary member of the regiment.
American composer, conductor, and educator Burnet Tuthill was born in New York City to William Burnet Tuthill, the noted architect of Carnegie Hall. The elder Tuthill was also an amateur cellist, and young Burnet was educated at the Horace Mann School in New York, and later at Columbia University in New York and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
“Overture Brilliante” was composed in the summer of 1938. Several years later, then-director of the Marine Band Major William F. Santelmann chose the work to perform on the band’s regular radio broadcasts. In 1968, just prior to the work’s publication, Santelmann’s successor, Lieutenant Colonel Dale Harpham, suggested retitling the work from the generic “Symphonic Overture.” Tuthill offered “Top Hat Overture,” but Harpham suggested that “the overture demands an easy remembered title of dignity and strength. It is brilliant!” With a new title, Tuthill gratefully re-dedicated the overture to the United States Marine Band.
By the 1920s, American composer George Gershwin was established as one of the great songwriters of the 20th century. With hits like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Swanee,” and “’S Wonderful,” he was a much sought-after composer of popular music; however, Gershwin was determined to be known as a serious classical musician. He first performed Three Preludes at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City in 1926, two years after composing his famous Rhapsody in Blue. While originally composed for solo piano, the preludes have since been arranged for solo instruments and small ensembles.
Pulitzer Prize and three-time Grammy winner Jennifer Higdon was born in Brooklyn in 1962. She taught herself to play flute at age 15 and began to compose at 21. She is now a major figure in the contemporary classical music world. The League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America’s most frequently performed composers. Higdon’s list of commissioners is extensive and includes nearly every major orchestra in the country. Her first opera, Cold Mountain, won the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016—the first American opera to win.
Aspire was commissioned by the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles for the United States Marine Band and premiered in Prague on July 20, 2022. Higdon described her process for composing this new addition to the band repertoire:
Having started my journey in music in the band world, I have always found this genre deeply moving. One of my first experiences of enjoying a band performance was hearing “The President’s Own,” on the US Capitol steps during a summer vacation in Washington, DC. To be asked to write a work for them was an incredible opportunity. I decided early in the process to create a work that would be more lyrical in nature that would reflect the gifts and skills of these talented musicians, as well as their innermost values as individuals who strive to serve their country with great honor. In other words, I was inspired to create a piece that musically portrays the goal of striving to be our best … to aspire.
Although Charles Ives had completed his Second Symphony around 1907, it did not receive its premiere until a Carnegie Hall performance by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Leonard Bernstein in 1951. In the years following its long-awaited debut, the symphony has earned recognition as an American symphonic masterwork.
Ives juxtaposes patriotic airs, college songs, fiddle tunes, and hymns within the style of the masters of Western art music. Much of the music quoted in the symphony, like many of Ives’s other works, was played by his father’s Danbury Band during his boyhood in Connecticut. “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” plays a particularly prominent role in the first and the fourth movements of the symphony in preparation for the song to finally spring forth amid blazing bugle calls and a purposefully “wrong” note in a final exclamation.
Kimberly Archer currently serves as professor of composition at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her wind music has been performed in major domestic and international venues. In 2021, she was commissioned by the United States Marine Band to contribute a work for the 59th Presidential Inauguration. The composer cited the following inspiration for her musical contribution to the ceremony:
“Fanfare Politeia” is an homage to the origins of our democracy, and to the ancient sources that Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams drew from in their conceiving and writing our Constitution. Politeia is a Greek word derived from polis (“city”). Aristotle used the term to represent concepts such as citizens’ rights and constitutional government, while Plato’s examination of justice—a book which we now call The Republic in English—was actually titled Politeia in the original Greek. “Fanfare Politeia” celebrates our traditions of a free and fair election, and of a peaceful transfer of power.
Works by virtuoso violist and composer Jessica Meyer have been performed by a diverse collection of ensembles, including the North Carolina Symphony, Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, Roomful of Teeth, Vox Clamantis, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, and Vermont Symphony Orchestra, among many others. Meyer is equally known for her inspirational work as an educator and entrepreneur, and her workshops have been featured at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, and many other institutions.
The United States Marine Band commissioned Meyer to compose Press On in 2021. On her inspiration for the composition, Meyer wrote, in part:
I am a late-in-life composer professionally, but was fortunate to have two loves develop while in high school: my love for creating my own music and my undying love for marching band. As a violist, I did not get to actually be in the band—but all my friends were. I was that kid who rode the band bus to whatever competition or parade they were performing in just to root them on … Mr. Theodore Scalzo directed the band program, but also taught a class that would eventually change my life—one where we learned about the nuances of music theory, not by studying all the rules and filling out charts, but by writing our own music using Mac computers and MIDI samplers (and this was back in 1991) … I never once thought of going for composition because I never deemed it “practical” [and] viola always equaled “orchestra job” in my mind. Years and years passed until I finally acknowledged what was missing from my life and returned to writing my own music—and with that, found success that was far from any practical imagining. To be able to write for such an amazing band like “The President’s Own” is a dream I could not have even conjured.
John Williams ranks among the most honored film composers of all time, with five Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, 24 Grammy Awards, and seven BAFTA Film Awards. His 52 Oscar nominations are the most ever received by a living person. Williams and fellow composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein enjoyed a personal friendship. Williams composed “To Lenny! To Lenny!” for Bernstein’s 70th birthday in 1988. The work quotes “New York, New York” and “Lonely Town” from Bernstein’s On the Town, fragments of “America” from West Side Story, and a hint of “Happy Birthday” in honor of the occasion. The piece was premiered for Bernstein by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Center on August 28, 1988.
Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Fredrick Loewe represent one of the most successful Broadway partnerships in American history. Their work together spanned three decades and nine musicals from the 1940s through the 1970s. Their creations represent some of the enduring shows in the canon. This medley crafted for “The President’s Own” gathers together three of their most memorable songs.
Katherine Lee Bates was a successful English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts when she wrote the words to one of the most recognizable American songs in history. Bates traveled to Colorado Springs in 1893 and took in the varied landscapes of the nation along the way, from Niagara Falls to the rolling farmlands of the heartland and the mountains of the west. She kept detailed notes of her trip, which culminated in a hike up the famed Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The view of the varied land she took in from the top of the mountain inspired the poem that became “America, the Beautiful.”
In 1904, the words were set to a popular hymn called “Materna,” written by Samuel Augustus Ward. Unfortunately, Ward passed away the year before his moving melody was paired with these words. “America, the Beautiful” was also among the songs strongly considered to become the national anthem in 1931. Although it was not selected, it has since achieved a similar, elevated status as an unofficial anthem. It remains an incredibly powerful portrait of the American spirit.
Since its premiere in Philadelphia on May 14, 1897, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” has easily secured its place as the most popular and widely recognized march of all time. For more than a century, it has captured the spirit of American patriotism perhaps better than any other composition. During the heyday of the Sousa Band, the march was performed as an encore at the end of nearly every concert. Audiences expected—and sometimes even demanded—to hear the piece and eventually began to stand upon recognizing its opening bars as if it were the national anthem. By Act of Congress, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” became America’s National March in 1987.
Sousa was a staunch patriot, and he often insisted that the impetus for “The Stars and Stripes Forever” was born of both his love for country and divine inspiration. The following is taken from a Sousa Band program from the early part of the century:
Someone asked, “Who influenced you to compose ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever,’” and before the question was hardly asked, Sousa replied, “God—and I say this in all reverence! I was in Europe and I got a cablegram that my manager was dead. I rushed … to Paris and then to England and sailed for America. On board the steamer as I walked miles up and down the deck, back and forth, a mental band was playing ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’ Day after day as I walked, it persisted in crashing into my very soul. I wrote it on Christmas Day, 1896.
Since our earliest days, America was both formed and protected by many brave men and women who were willing to stand up for what they believed. The Marine Band often salutes all members of the Armed Forces throughout America’s 230-year history with a special concert medley. It is because of their courage and sacrifice that our country has survived so many hardships and continues to flourish today. And with your help, too, America’s story will continue to be written for many years to come.