- Frederick Fennell
Frederick Fennell (
July 2 ,1914 inCleveland, Ohio –December 7 ,2004 inSiesta Key, Florida ) was an internationally recognized conductor, and one of the primary figures in promoting thewind ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and greatly affected the field ofmusic education in the USA and abroad.Fennell chose percussion as his primary instrument at the age of seven, as drummer in the fife-and-drum corps at the family's encampment called Camp Zeke. He owned his first
drum set at age ten. In the John Adams High School Orchestra, Fennell performed as thekettledrum mer and served as the band'sdrum major .His studies at the
Interlochen Arts Camp (then theNational Music Camp ) included being chosen by famed bandmasterAlbert Austin Harding as the bass drummer in the National High School Band in 1931. This band was conducted byJohn Philip Sousa onJuly 26 , the program including the premiere of Sousa's Northern Pines march. Fennell himself conducted at Interlochen at the age of seventeen.Fennell found a compatible and fruitful relationship at the
Eastman School of Music . As a student, he organized the firstUniversity of Rochester marching band for the football team and held indoor concerts with the band after the football season for ten years. At Eastman, he completed his bachelor's and master's degrees (in 1937 and 1939). Fennell became the first person ever to be awarded a degree in percussion performance. He was also awarded a fellowship that allowed him to study at theMozarteum Salzburg in 1938. Attending the Mozarteum Salzburg allowed him to take several classes withHerbert Albert and visit several times with the festival’s chief conductorWilhelm Furtwängler . Returning, he sailed on the SS Bremen departingSouthampton on September 3, 1938. For the purpose of the passenger manifest, he signed his name as Frederick Putnam Fennell (a rare use of his middle name).Fennell also studied conducting with
Sergei Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center atTanglewood in 1942 (with fellow clasmatesLeonard Bernstein ,Lukas Foss , andWalter Hendl ). (He was appointed Koussevitzky’s assistant at the Center in 1948). During World War II Fennell served as the National Musical Advisor in theUnited Service Organizations .Eastman Wind Ensemble While Fennell was recuperating from
hepatitis for six weeks in 1952, he devised a new symphonic band organization. This involved scaling the typical concert band down to the wind section of asymphony orchestra allowing for greater clarity and fewer intonation difficulties. Fennell called a meeting of nearly 40 players in May 1952. Fennell himself explained that “I chose the best students in the school, and the best solo performers, and the best ensemble players”. OnSeptember 20 ,1952 he held the first rehearsal for the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and he conducted the first concert at Eastman's Kilbourn Hall onFebruary 8 ,1953 . Desiring expanded repertoire, Fennell mailed letters to nearly 400 composers around the world requesting appropriate compositions for the new group. The first composer to respond wasPercy Grainger , followed byVincent Persichetti andRalph Vaughan Williams .Fennell's Recordings
While with the Eastman Wind Ensemble, the
Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra , and various other groups, Fennell recorded many of the standards of the wind band repertoire. He became one of America's most-recorded conductors. Starting with "American Concert Band Masterpieces" in 1953, Fennell recorded over 300 compositions on 29 albums forMercury Records . For Mercury, Fennell recorded with the Eastman-Rochester "Pops", London "Pops" (actually theLondon Symphony Orchestra ), and free-lance groups of New York musicians. However, best known are the twenty-two of these 29 Mercury albums that were with Fennell's ownEastman Wind Ensemble . One of these albums, "Lincolnshire Posy" byPercy Grainger recorded in 1958, was selected byStereo Review magazine as one of the "50 best recordings of the Centenary of the Phonograph 1877-1977". The two volume "Civil War - Its Music and Its Sounds", recorded in December 1960, was a notable set of recordings also made with theEastman Wind Ensemble , this time performing onoriginal instruments . In 1961, Fennell received a citation and a medal from the Congressional Committee for the Centennial of the Civil War for these recordings. In 2003, the 1958 Mercury album "Winds in Hi Fi" was chosen by theNational Recording Preservation Board for theNational Recording Registry .Nearly all of Fennell's Mercury recordings were reissued on
compact disc . Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble were also featured in the premiere issuance of Mercury material oncompact disc . In 1986, 22 Sousa marches performed by the Eastman Wind Ensemble were released as a compact disc byPhilips Records , which now owned the Mercury catalog.Fennell made the first symphonic digital recording in the United States for
Telarc with the Cleveland Symphonic Winds, onApril 4 -5, 1978. This recording included the two Suites for Military Band byGustav Holst . Fennell also recorded for Brain,Columbia Records , Delos, King, Kosei, Ludwig, Premier Recordings, Reference Recordings, and Sine Qua Non Superba as well as the Library of Congress label.Career After Eastman
Dr. Fennell was associate music director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the
Minnesota Orchestra ) from 1962 to 1964. In September 1965 he became conductor-in-residence at theUniversity of Miami where he conducted the symphony orchestra and also founded a wind ensemble. He also served as the resident conductor of the Miami Philharmonic 1974 to 1975. He was also principal guest conductor of the Interlochen Arts Academy andDallas Wind Symphony . At the invitation of its players, he was appointed the initial conductor of theTokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra in 1984. [http://www.tkwo.jp/english/about/fennell.html]On the podium, Fennell evinced a courtly yet commanding manner despite his five foot, one inch stature. He was known to take charge of a room with just his words, and his conducting was extremely animated. His conducting workshops were famous for including calisthenics and baton technique exercises in swimming pools. He remained highly active in the world of conducting until a few months before his death at the age of ninety at his home in Siesta Key, Florida. At the time he was conductor laureate of the
Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra , principal guest conductor of theDallas Wind Symphony [http://www.dws.org/ffennell.htm] , and professor emeritus of theUniversity of Miami Frost School of Music.Awards and Honors
Dr. Fennell received Columbia University's Alice M.
Ditson Conductor's Award in 1969, was presented the Star of the Order from the John Philip Sousa Memorial Foundation in 1985, received an honorary doctorate from Eastman in 1988, and was inducted into theNational Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors in 1990. He received the Theodore Thomas Award of the Conductor's Guild in 1994. [http://www.conductorsguild.org/main.asp?pageID=20] He was also inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2003, he received the Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award fromPhi Mu Alpha Sinfonia . [http://www.sinfonia.org/News/SN-2004-12-07.asp]Fennell was said to be most fond of the honorary doctorate he was awarded from Eastman, being inducted as an honorary chief of the
Kiowa Nation in the 1960s, and receiving a medal of honor from Interlochen in 1989. He made frequent appearances guest conducting such ensembles as theBoston Pops Orchestra 1949 to 1978,Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra ,Cleveland Orchestra ,London Symphony Orchestra , theUnited States Marine Band ,Interlochen Arts Academy , and theInterlochen Arts Camp . In 1997, Fennell became the first civilian to conduct an entire concert with the United States Marine Band; and in July 1998 he repeated this at a concert in theKennedy Center celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Marine Band.Dr. Fennell was a brother of
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia , a social music fraternity, andKappa Kappa Psi , the National Honorary Band Fraternity.Frederick Fennell Hall was dedicated in Kofu, Japan on
July 17 ,1992 . OnApril 4 ,2006 , theInterlochen Center for the Arts opened up state of the art music and academic libraries, with the music library named in honor and memory of Dr. Fennell and his wife, Elizabeth Ludwig Fennell. [http://www.interlochen.org/news/ecrescendo/june_2006/grand_openings]At the conductor's request, his ashes were scattered in the woods at Interlochen, Michigan.
Fennell's Writings
Fennell wrote several books: Time and the Winds, a Short History of the Use of Wind Instruments in the Orchestra, Band and the Wind Ensemble, 1954; The Drummer’s Heritage, a Collection of Popular Airs and Official U.S. Army Music for Fifes and Drums, 1956; and The Wind Ensemble, 1988. Fennell also edited for several music publishers:
Boosey & Hawkes , Carl Fisher,Theodore Presser , andSam Fox . For the Fennell Editions at Ludwig Music he edited over 50 scores for band performance, including many marches. One of these editions published in 1981 was for his favorite march,National Emblem byEdwin Eugene Bagley . He also wrote a series of sixteen articles published in The Instrumentalist under the heading ‘Basic Band Repertory’ beginning in April 1975 and concluding in February 1984. These articles were devoted to what Fennell called "...indestructible masterpieces for band that have survived the ravages of time and many an inept conductor".References
The 1993 Roger E. Rickson book "Ffortissimo: a Bio-Discography of Frederick Fennell: the First Forty Years, 1953 to 1993", (Ludwig Music, Inc., publisher) ISBN 1-57134-000-9 covers in detail the Fennell story, with particular attention to recordings. There is also considerable biographical detail in the 2004 Robert Simon book "A Tribute to Frederick Fennell" (GIA Publications) ISBN 1-57999-472-5.
The Frederick Fennell Collection at the
Library of Congress includes over 20,000 items (scrapbooks, letters, photographs). [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.scdb.200033609/default.html]External links
* [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200152754/default.html Fennell, Frederick: "The Sousa March: A Personal View"]
* [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/4222 Orchestral development of the kettledrum from Purcell through Beethoven.] Fennell's MM thesis --University of Rochester. From Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collections-ttl|title=Conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble
years=1952–1961
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