Warren Benson is commissioned by music fraternity Kappa Gamma Psi to write The Leaves Are Falling based upon chorale Ein Feste Burg inspired by poem “Herbst” (Autumn) by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Gunther Schuller conducts premiere on his quiet serial work Mediatation at American Bandmasters Association convention.
Benson composes Symphony for Durms and Wind Orchestra
Norman Dello Joio composes Variations on a Medieval Tune on commission from Duke University.
Martin Mailman writes Liturgical Music for Band, op. 33.
1964
International Events
Johnson and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota are elected president and vice president, respectively.
New York’s World Fair opens; General Motors’ Futurama is most popular exhibit.
Music in the United States
Beatlemania sweeps U.S. as album Meet the Beatles sells 2 million copies.
Igor Stravinsky composes Elegy for JFK for baritone voice and three clarinets. Robert Craft conducts premiere.
William Kraft composes Concerto for Four Solo Percussion and Orchestra, dedicating it to memory of Varese.
Coltrane improvises on reiteration of Martin Luther King speech in “Psalm” from A Love Supreme.
Lou Harrison composes At the Tomb of Charles Ives for orchestra.
Terry Riley composes minimalistic In C for any number of musicians. Composers Riley, Reich, Oliveros, and Subotnick are performers in premiere.
Musicals on Broadway include Hello Dolly, Fiddler on the Roof, and Funny Girl
Dello Joio composes Scenes from the Louvre for special NBC broadcast (1964), winning an Emmy award in 1965.
American Wind Band Music
Benson’s Leaves Are Falling is premiered by Eastman Wind Ensemble. Later many associate it as a memorial to John F. Kennedy.
Copland composes Emblems on commission from CBDNA on request by Keith Wilson of Yale. Emblems is first CBDNA commission.
Ronald Lo Presti composes Elegy on a Young American in memory of JFK.
Donald Hunsberger transcribes Festive Overture by Shostakovich.
Schuller composes Diptych for Brass Quintet and Concert Band.
Czech immigrant Vaclav Nelhybel writes Trittico.
Leslie Bassett composes Designs, Images and Textures for Ithaca High School.
Schuman transcribes Band Song from original 1939 voice and piano version.
ABA publishes Journal of Band Research.
1965
International Events
Viet Cong attack U.S. military compound in South Vietnam. President Johnson orders raids on Vietnam and sends more troops to fight.
Large anti-war demonstrations break out in U.S.
Dr. King leads march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest discrimination against African Americans in voting registration.
Civil rights riot in Watts section of Los Angeles last for 6 days.
Edward White is first American to walk in space.
Music in the United States
Bob Dylan’s rock song “Like a Rolling Stone” provokes audiences.
Schuller intersects jazz and classical music with First Symphony.
Philip Glass works with Ravi Shankar, Indian sitarist, and Alla Rakha, revolutionizing his musical thinking.
Charles Ives’ Symphony no. 4, composed in 1910-1925, is premiered.
Musical Man of La Mancha is composed by Mitch Leigh.
Steve Reich composes music concrete works: It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out, each based on a short spoken phrase.
John Barnes Chance writes Variations on a Korean Folk Song.
Warren Benson composes Remembrance.
Walter Hartley composes Sinfonia no.4.
Barney Childs writes aleatoric Six Events for Fifty-Eight Players for Ithaca High School Band.
Jan Meyerowitz composes Three Comments on War.
Donald Hunsberger is appointed conductor of Eastman Wind Ensemble.
1966
International Events
US begins bombing North Vietnam
KKK attacks blacks and Civil Rights workers in the South
Edward Brooke from Massachusetts is elected first black US Senator since Reconstruction of 1866
New York and Pennsylvania railroads combine, creating biggest merger in US history
Music in the United States
Leslie Basset’s Variations for Orchestra wins Pulitzer Prize
Michael Colgrass breaks from serialism with As Quiet As for orchestra
Gunther Schuller’s opera The Visitation plays in Hamburg State Opera House
Duke Ellington composes religious jazz In the Beginning God, playing in churches throughout US and Europe
New Metropolitan Opera House in New York’s Lincoln Center opens
Samuel Barber premieres opera Anthony and Cleopatra in New York
Rock concerts become commonplace in outdoor arenas after The Beatles fill giant Shea Stadium
American Wind Band Music
Warren Benson composes The Solitary Dancer for Clarence High School Band. It becomes his most performed work.
Norman Dello Joio sets Scenes from the Louvre for band, originally for orchestra, for NBC TV special broadcast. Original score wins Emmy.
John Barnes Chance receives ABA/Ostwald Award for Variations on a Korean Folk Song
Vincent Persichetti composes cantata Celebrations for wind ensemble and chorus based on Walt Whitman poetry
David Amram composes King Lear Variations
Vaclav Nelhybel writes Symphonic Movement.
1967
International Events
US forces attack Viet Cong in Mekong River Delta. US suffers heavy losses near Con Thien just south of the DMZ. US peace talks with Hanoi begin in Paris. US troops capture hill near Dak To after 19-day battle.
Anti-war protesters march in DC.
Riots continue in slum areas of cities.
Thurgood Marshall becomes first African American to sit on Supreme Court
US population reaches 200 million
Astronauts Grisson, White, and Chaffee are killed inside Saturn 1B rocket during a pre-flight test.
Soviet cosmonaut Komarov dies in Soyuz I rocket during reentry.
Music in the United States
Hanz Werner Henze’s Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra premieres.
Rolling Stone celebrates counter-cultural movement and work of rock musicians
Steve Reich composes Piano Phase for two keyboards in phase shifts.
Leon Kirchner wins Pulitzer Prize with String Quartet no. 3.
Hello Dolly! Is revived with all-black cast including Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway
Morton Subtonick organizes and composes eclectic evening of multi-media music, An Electric Christmas.
American Wind Band Music
Krzystof Penderecki composes Pittsburgh Overture for American Wind Symphony, allowing the players and the conductor to determine the actual shape of a composition.
John Krance arranges epic Carmina Burana for concert band in collaboration with Orff.
Donald Erb writes Stargazing with electronic tape.
There are more than 67,000 instrumental organizations in the US and more than 50,000 wind bands.
William Rhoads transcribes Ives’ Variations on America, originally for organ, from Schuman’s transcription for orchestra.
Henry Brant composes Verticals Ascending after Rodia Watts Towers, music of spatial separation and disposition for double wind ensemble.
Hunsberger initiates MCA contemporary music project.
Schuller writes Study in Textures for band.
1968
International Events
Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attack more than 100 cities and military bases. President Johnson ends bombing in North Vietnam.
Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis.
Robert Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles.
Richard Nixon is elected president.
Music in the United States
George Crumb wins Pulitzer Prize for orchestral work Echoes of Time and River.
Italian immigrant Luciano Berio composes Sinfonia defining neo-Romantic movement or “new accessibility.”
National Association of Jazz Educators is formed.
Jerome Rosen premieres Concerto for Synket (electronic instrument) and Orchestra in Seattle.
Eric Salzmann composes The Nude Paper Sermon tropes for actor, Renaissance consort, chorus, electronic music.
Aretha Franklin and Jimi Hendrix are equally popular.
Hendrix improvises “The Star-Spangled Banner” on guitar in massive rock concerts.
American Wind Band Music
Ithaca College gives first Walter Beeler Memorial Commission to Karel Husa. Husa responds to Soviet invasion of his native Prague with Music for Prague, 1968. He transcribes it for orchestra and the work is performed 8,000 times world-wide by bands and major city orchestras.
Karel Husa writes Concerto for Saxophone and Band for Sigurd Rascher.
Robert Jager’s Diamond Variations is awarded ABA/Ostwald Award.
Dello Joio composes Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn on commission by Michigan Band and Orchestra Association.
1969
International events
Federal Grand Jury indicts eight anti-war protesters for inciting riot at National Democratic Convention in Chicago. Trial of “Chicago 8” begins.
House of Representatives and US Army investigate 1968 massacre of South Vietnamese civilians.
Large anti-war demonstrations take place and include Vietnam Moratorium Days in DC.
US and USSR begin preliminary SALT in Helsinki.
Several traditionally all-male colleges and universities including Yale, Bowdoin, and Colgate admit women.
Music in the US
Woodstock Music and Art Fair attracts nearly 400,000 near Bethel, NY.
Vincent Persichetti composes his most important major work, the oratorio The Creation.
Karel Husa wins Pulitzer Prize for String Quartet no. 3.
Gian Carlo Menotti produces Help! Help! The Globolinks! For Santa Fe Opera about an alien invasion.
Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande is choreographed by Roland Pettit for Fonteyn and Nureyev in New York.
Robert Hall Lewis writes General Speech, a savage parody of General Macarthur’s “Duty! Honor! Country!” speech for unaccompanied double bass. It is one of many virtuosic pieces American composers write during this period.
William Bolcom and William Albright write rag Brass Knuckles.
John Cages composes HPSCHD, a spectacular five-hour work for seven harpsichordists and multimedia; it is premiered at the Unviersity of Illinois.
Philip Glass composes Music in Fifths in repeated five-note patterns.
Historical musical 1776 is based on signing of Declaration of Independence
President Nixon presents Duke Ellington with Medal of Freedom.
American Wind Band Music
University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, Frank Bencriscutto conductor, takes historic ambassador concert tour to Soviet Union, returning to offer command performance for President Nixon on White House Lawn.
Warren Benson composes Shadow Wood for voice and wind ensemble.
Ron Nelson writes Rocky Point Holiday on a commission from University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble.
Richard Willis’ Air and Toccata receives ABA/Ostwald Award.
Earl Slocum transcribes Bedrich Smetana’s The High Castle for band, one of several artistic works he makes available to band.
Public pressure to end Vietnam War increases. Paris Peace talks continue.
National Guard fires on 1,000 antiwar protesters at Kent State University in Ohio. Four students are killed.
448 colleges and universities are either closed or on strike in protest of Kent State killings and U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
U.S. withdraws more troops from Vietnam.
Former Governor Wallace encourages Southern governors to defy federal integration order.
President Nixon names first two women generals in U.S. history
Congress creates National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), a federal corporation authorized to operate trains between U.S. cities.
Congress establishes EPA, Environmental Protection Agency
Report shows Sesame Street, a nationwide TV program, improves educational skills of children
Music in the US
George Crumb composes Ancient Voices for Children and Black Angels “in time of war.”
Wuorinen’s Time Econium is first electronic work to be awarded Pulitzer Prize.
Smithsonian hires critic Martin Williams to direct jazz program, resulting in important recording reissues, including Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz.
Klemperer conducts Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at his eighty-fifth birthday concert in Los Angeles.
Duke Ellington gives sacred music concert in Harlem, New York City
Eugene Ormandy conducts first U.S. performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 13 in Philadelphia.
John Corigliano composes electric rock opera, Naked Carmen.
Pauline Oliveros and several other women composers create performance art, using bodies and materials for making music (ca. 1970).
American Wind Band Music
Karel Husa composes his most serious work for band and chorus, Apotheosis of This Earth.
First Regional/Metro Youth Wind Ensemble, the Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble, is established by Frank Battisti and sponsored by the New England Conservatory of Music.
First National Wind Ensemble Conference takes place at New England Conservatory
1971
International Events
U.S. Supreme Court rules hiring policies must be same for women as men.
New York Times publishes classified Pentagon papers about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Supreme Court uphold rights of Times and Washington Post to publish papers.
Twenty-sixth Amendment is ratified, lowering minimum voting age in elections from twenty-one to eighteen
U.S. Supreme Court rules federal and state aid to parochial schools is unconstitutional.
Supreme Court upholds busing of children to integrate schools where state laws have allowed segregation.
President Nixon imposes ninety-day freeze on wages, prices, and rents to curb inflation.
Supreme Court rules that conscientious objectors seeking draft exemption must show they oppose all wars, not just Vietnam War.
Music in the US
Elliot Carter wins his second Pulitzer Prize with String Quartet no. 3 commissioned by Julliard School of Music.
Mario Davidovsky receives Pulitzer Prize for electronic music piece Synchonism no. 6.
Fiddler on the Roof becomes longest running musical in Broadway history, surpassing Hello Dolly’s 2,844 performances.
Stockhausen’s “Hymen” Symphony is performed in New York.
Two religiously inspired Broadway shows, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, are hits.
Igor Stravinsky dies in New York City (April 6).
Milhaud writes Music for San Francisco for orchestra and Homage a Igor Stravinsky for string quartet
American Wind Band Music
Fischer Tull composes his masterpiece for winds and percussion, Sketches on a Tudor Psalm.
Karel Husa composes Concerto for Percussion and Wind Ensemble.
Karl Kroeger receives ABA/Ostwald Award for Divertimento.
John Barnes Chance pens Blue Lake Overture.
Francis McBeth composes The Seventh Seal.
Perschetti writes O Cool is the Valley (Poem for Band).
1972
International Events
U.S. B-52s bomb Haiphong and Hanoi. Henry Kissinger, president’s Assistant for National Security, states “peace is at hand.” U.S. continues to pull troops out of Vietnam.
Military draft ends. Armed forces become all volunteer.
Police arrest five men for breaking into Democratic Party National Headquarters in Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Republicans deny charges of “Watergate burglaries” being sanctioned by President Nixon’s campaign officials.
Nixon visits Communist China and U.S.S.R.
Amendment prohibiting sex discrimination against women is sent to states for ratification.
Nixon and Agnew are reelected president and vice president respectively.
U.S. and ninety other nations agree to stop dumping pollutants into oceans.
Music in the US
Jacob Druckman is awarded Pulitzer Prize for Windows, a mosaic of fragments of old music for orchestra.
Leonard Bernstein premiers his Mass in Washington, D.C., an example of third-stream Theatre.
Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention are described as an amalgam of Varèsese-, Stravinsky-, and Cage-influenced rock music.
Stephen Sonheim composes musical of innovative artistic ideas, A Little Night Music.
Engineer Robert Moog patents Moog synthesizer, an electronic musical instrument which duplicates sounds of instruments with remarkable accuracy.
Popular Broadway musicals are Pippin and Grease
American Wind Band Music
More than 200 wind band works have been commissioned from 1942 to 1972. Robert Bourdeau, conductor of American Wind Symphony Orchestra states, “American wind bands have largest commissioning program in history of music.”
Howard Hanson composes Dies Natalis based on Christmas hymn and Young Person’s Guide to the Six-Tone Scale for piano, winds, and percussion.
Robert Jager’s Sinfonietta receives ABA/Ostwald Award.
John Zdechik sets “Simple Gifts” in Chorale and Shaker Dance on commission by Jefferson High School Band of Bloomington, Minnesota.
1973
International Events
Senate committee headed by Samuel Ervin holds televised hearings on Watergate affair.
U.S. ends military draft.
Vice President Agnew resigns, pleading no contest to charges of income tax evasion. Gerald Ford becomes vice president.
U.S. and South Vietnam sign cease-fire with North Vietnam and Viet Cong, ending Vietnam War.
Population is 201.1 million, an increase of 1.6 million from 1972.
Kissinger becomes Secretary of State.
Members of American Indian Movement make Native American grievances known during seventy-day seizure of trading post and church at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Music in the US
Jacob Druckman composes Delzia contente che l’alme beate based on an aria by Francesco Cavalli.
Lou Harrison composes Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra.
Steve Reich composes Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ.
St. George Tucker composes number of works in quarter-tones, including Little Pieces for Quarter Tone Piano and Quartertone Recorder Duets.
Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus co-found Minnesota Composers Forum, later named American Composers Forum (1996).
Bernstein gives famous Norton Professor of Poetry lectures at Harvard in which he uses a controversial interpretation of Chomsky’s theory of linguistics to argue the universal nature of tonality in music.
American Wind Band Music
Timothy Broege composes Sinfonia V and The Headless Horseman based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Alfred Reed writes Alleluia! Laudamus Te.
Roger Nixon’s Elegy and March receives ABA/Oswald Award.
Symphonic bands and wind ensembles flourish in schools, colleges, and universities. There are 50,000 secondary school bands and 2,000 college/university bands in U.S.
Donald Hunsberger establishes National Wind Ensemble Center at Eastman.
