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Grainger as Educator: On the First Performance of The Immovable Do for Wind Band

Phillip Allen Correll

Percy Grainger’s role as composer, conductor, soloist, lecturer and educator in remote American

high schools and universities during the middle of the twentieth century significantly influenced the

development of wind band music. Grainger’s The Immovable Do for wind band was composed between

1933 and 1939 and first performed in Ada, Oklahoma, during the 1940 East Central Music Festival. The

work and its premiere reflect an emerging need for original wind band music of high quality that was

marketable to the broad demands of educational settings.

Programming by the growing American school band movement during the first quarter of the

twentieth century was largely influenced by military and professional bands, particularly the John Philip

Sousa Band. The prospect of commercial profit influenced many composers to write music for school

bands and drove music publishers to produce simple original band compositions. Further contributing to

the call for more school band compositions was the rise in popularity of the university marching band at

sporting events, beginning with the first half-time show at an American football game by the University

of Illinois Marching Band in 1907, the creation of the first National Band Contest in 1926, and the

establishment of the Interlochen Summer Music Camp in 1928. Edwin Franko Goldman, composer,

conductor, and founder of New York City’s Goldman Band, encouraged the production of artistic music

for band and with his son, Richard Franko Goldman, and several leaders from the band profession

established the American Bandmasters Association in 1929. By 1940 a small number of early

important wind band works were in publication, such as First Suite in E-flat (1909) by Gustav Holst,

Toccata Marziale (1924) by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lincolnshire Posy (1937) by Grainger. Aaron

Copland’s An Outdoor Overture for orchestra was originally written in 1938 on commission as functional

music meant to interest and inspire American high school orchestra students; in 1942 Copland arranged

the work for wind band. Nevertheless, the majority of available literature consisted of orchestral

transcriptions, opera excerpts, popular tunes and marches.

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Grainger’s concert tours to remote locations in America increased during the 1930s and 1940s,

including towns in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma.

According to his biographer, John Bird, Grainger began in the 1920s to reject major cultural centers in

favour of regional cities, being at home with music clubs, chamber groups, school choirs, college bands,

and the smaller music festivals far removed from recognized cultural centers where he typically received

more enthusiastic playing from such musicians than from professional organizations.1 In these places he

might reduce his fee for performance of one of his stock concertos if a local wind band presented some of

his own works. Both Grainger and Karl King, a prominent composer of marches, were engaged as clinicians

and conductors for the 1940 East Central Music Festival in Ada, Oklahoma, to be held at East Central State

College (later East Central University). Grainger’s appearance in Ada was indicative of his need to support

himself financially, but is also representative of the ways in which his activities in American high schools

and universities democratized participation in wind band music. Through letters and other documentation

of the visits to Ada by both Grainger and Karl King, a snapshot can be gained of the differing attitudes of

two major participants in American wind band music-making at the outset of the Second World War.

Preparations for the 1940 East Central Music Festival

The earliest correspondence between Grainger and Harlo McCall, East Central University Director

of Bands, dates from October 23, 1939 when McCall informed Grainger of the festival schedule and

requested a list of possible works for the program of a concert on February 23, 1940. McCall reported to

Grainger that the best bands in the country come from this part of Oklahoma so do not let the difficulty bar

it from your list.2 Grainger pencilled onto the letter a possible program of Marching Song of Democracy,

I’m Seventeen Come Sunday, Irish Tune no. 29, Australian Up-Country Song, The Immovable Do and a

1 John Bird, Percy Grainger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 231.

2 Harlo McCall, letter to Percy Grainger, 23 October 1939, Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne (GM).

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work by Jenkins (1592–1678) that is illegible (possibly an arrangement by Grainger for clarinet quintet of

Jenkins’s Fantasy for Five Strings no. 1 in D).

As a result of McCall’s letter Grainger began to arrange The Immovable Do for wind band.

Grainger’s inspiration for the work came one morning in early 1933 when he sat down at the harmonium,

his preferred instrument for composition, and discovered the high ‘C’ mechanism had malfunctioned with

the note continually sounding while he played. Making the best of the humorous situation, he improvised

around the note and created one of his most unusual and perhaps underplayed compositions. As he

explained in his program notes to the work printed in the score published by Schirmer in 1941:

The Immovable Do (composed 1933–1939) draws its title from one of the two kinds of Tonic Sol-fa

notation, one with a ‘movable Do’ (‘Do’ corresponding to the key-note of whatever key the

music is couched in, from moment to moment; so that the note designated by ‘Do’ varies with

(modulation) and the other with an ‘immovable Do’ (in which ‘Do’ always stands for C). In my

composition – which is not based on any folksong or popular tune – the ‘immovable Do’ is a high

drone on C which is sounded throughout the whole piece. From the very start (in 1933) I conceived

the number for any or all of the following mediums, singly or combined: for organ (or reed organ),

for mixed chorus, for wind band or wind groups, for full or small orchestra, for string orchestra or

8 single strings. It seemed natural for me to plan it simultaneously for these different mediums,

seeing that such music hinges upon intervallic appeal rather than upon effects or tone-color.3

During the summer of 1939 he completed an ‘elastic’ scoring of the work, allowing it to be performed by

a variety of instrumental and vocal combinations through the use of systematic cross-cueing. Interestingly,

though rarely mentioned in Grainger’s published letters after 1940, The Immovable Do seemed to be one

of his preferred works for use with high school and college festival ensembles, perhaps because of its

adaptability and moderate technical demands. Wilfrid Mellers regards the work as most effective in its wind

3 Percy Grainger, The Immovable Do (New York: G. Schirmer, 1941).

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band version “wherein shifting concords in moderate march-time produce an effect of open-eared

wonderment similar to that of the Children’s March”. 4

A few weeks after McCall’s letter to Grainger, Karl King wrote to McCall of his concern about the

festival conflicting with the dates of his local concerts in Fort Dodge, Iowa. He also offered critical but

friendly advice based on a previous experience of conducting alongside Grainger: “Have you had Mr.

Grainger there before to direct band? If not, I feel that I should mention certain things to you for your own

good and that of the band and these things are no reflection against Mr. Grainger who is a fine musician

and fine fellow.”5 King reported that at the Milwaukee Convention of American Bandmasters in March

1937 each of 20 conductors were allowed 15 minutes rehearsal but Grainger, as guest of honor, took nearly

a whole afternoon to rehearse his own two works. “Most experienced bandmasters, in King’s opinion:

would not do this but of course a pianist does not realize how a brass man’s lips tire. Mr. Grainger

is quite enthusiastic and does not realize how much time he is taking or how much he is wearing

out the band. He is a pleasant fellow, who has done many fine things in music and has done some

very fine charitable things with his money and a man to be admired and I hope that this is not

construed as a personal attack on him. I merely suggest this as a protection to your band. It may be

that he would not repeat the Milwaukee performance but I am telling you honestly that the band

was on the point of revolt up there”.6

McCall wrote again to Grainger on December 14, expressing his concern about the difficult vocal

programme selected. He warned Grainger to expect a lack of preparation from the local singers and that

they would be reluctant to be subjugated by the band. Ignoring the list of possible works sent by Grainger

he asked if Lincolnshire Posy could be included on the band program, if the chorus and band could combine

to perform Country Gardens and if the chorus could sing (with piano accompaniment) (The) Dream Lay.

Grainger responded on December 22, writing that “If chorus wants to shine by themselves, without too

4 Wilfrid Mellers, Percy Grainger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 43.

5 Karl King, letter to Harlo McCall, 18 November 1939, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

6 Karl King, letter to Harlo McCall, 18 November 1939, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

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much band” 7 he would suggest The Hunter in His Career, Irish Tune no. 5, Tribute to Foster, Australian

Up-Country Song and I’m Seventeen Come Sunday. For band he suggested Children’s March with piano,

The Immovable Do and Shepherd’s Hey. Grainger also sent several scores for McCall to browse, including

a new composition for band, The Immovable Do, apologizing for its illegibility but assuring McCall how

easy it is for the band.

A further letter from Grainger to McCall dated January 9, 1940 confirmed the final program,

virtually as Grainger had proposed – Tribute to Foster was excluded and, as Grainger explained, both (The)

Dream Lay and Lincolnshire Posy had been sent to the engravers in London and would probably not be

published in time for the festival due to the war. In this letter Grainger also provided a detailed inventory

of the parts of The Immovable Do along with program notes. The score and parts used in the concert, now

housed in the Band Library at East Central University, demonstrate Grainger’s colourful English

vocabulary for expression marks and include meticulous instructions to the conductor and performer,

rendering the score slightly cluttered and a little difficult to read.8

King confirmed his program for the festival in a letter to McCall dated January 23, 1940.

Responding to McCall’s request for program notes he wrote, “Program notes are a pain in the neck to me

as most of these [his own] tunes were written with no programs or story back of them and very little I can

say about them.”9 He did include brief program notes but added, “most program notes are pure ‘hooey’

anyway”.10 In a further letter from King to McCall a week before the festival event King advised that “if

the party who meets me at [the] train has trouble in identifying strangers, have them look for a BIG sleepy

looking individual, 6 ft. 2 [in.], 240 pounds with a mustache and a hungry look!”11

7 Grainger, letter to Harlo McCall, 22 December 1939, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

8 Facsimile score and parts of The Immovable Do dated 9 January 1940, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

9 Karl King, letter to Harlo McCall, 23 January 1940, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

10 Karl King, letter to Harlo McCall, 23 January 1940, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

11Karl King, letter to Harlo McCall, 23 January 1940, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

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At the 1940 East Central Music Festival

At the concert on Thursday, February 22, 1940 McCall conducted the University Band and King conducted

the Festival Band. On the program was the premiere of a work by McCall and seven popular numbers

arranged by King:

I. East Central Concert Band, Harlo E. McCall, Conductor

The President (first performance) McCall

‘Inflammatus’ from Stabat Mater Rossini

Repartee Bennett

Dinah arr. McCall

Finale from the Fourth Symphony Tchaikovsky

II. Festival Band, Karl L. King, Conductor

Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite King

Mighty Minnesota King

Old Vienna King

Ponderoso King

A Night in June King

War March of the Tartars King

Princess of India King

Grainger arrived by bus later that evening and so missed the concert conducted by McCall and King. The

following afternoon, Friday February 23, he presented a lecture to local band and choir directors before

conducting the evening concert of the Festival Chorus and Band in the gymnasium of the University Health

Building.12 On the program were four works with the Festival Chorus, a selection of works for piano

performed by Grainger, and three works by Grainger with the Festival Band:

12 East Central Music Festival Concert Program, 22–23 February 1940, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

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I. Festival Chorus

Irish Tune from County Derry Grainger

The Hunter in His Career Grainger

Australian Up-Country Tune Grainger

I’m Seventeen Come Sunday Grainger

II. Percy Aldridge Grainger, solo pianist

To the Springtime Grieg

Wedding Day at Troldhaugen Grieg

American Tango John Alden Carpenter

Juba Dance Nathaniel Dett

III. Festival Band

Children’s March ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ Grainger

The Immovable Do (first performance) Grainger

Shepherd’s Hey, English Morris Dance Grainger

The Festival Chorus and Band combined the upper 10 per cent of each participating high school band and

choir who had been selected by their directors to perform in the honor groups for both massed concerts with

the East Central University Chorus and Band. Approximately 1,300 band students participated in the

parade, clinics and concerts with King on Thursday, and 300 band and choir students in the clinics and

massed concert with Grainger on Friday. King and Grainger shared rehearsal responsibility on adjacent

days and it seems likely they could have met; however, no evidence exists that they had personal contact

with one another during the festival. As usual, a flood of students, parents and patrons came to Ada to attend

the clinics, parade and concerts. Careful observation of the formal photos reveals a larger audience attended

King’s rehearsal compared to Grainger’s. Though other reasons might explain the difference it is possible

that King was a more recognized and popular figure among directors and parents in 1940.

According to the local newspaper, the Ada Evening News, an estimated 3,000 people attended the

Friday night massed concert by Grainger, producing the largest event since the festival’s inception in 1938.

Formal photos of King and Grainger in front of their respective festival groups depict their different manner

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and approach to school bands (see Figures 13.1 and 13.2). King’s picture reveals a tall man, dressed in

uniform with medals, standing at attention on the podium, while Grainger’s picture discloses a man of

shorter stature, dressed in a suit, hand in pocket, and casually turned to the side of the podium. All of the

students in King’s picture are dressed in uniform, while most of the students in Grainger’s picture are in

concert attire. Grainger’s casual manner in his picture perhaps displays a freer, more egalitarian and non-

militaristic approach and an attitude that concerts should not be boring, stuffy affairs.

Figure 13.1 Karl L. King at rehearsal, 22 February 1940

Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma. Reproduced by permission of the Dean of the

College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, USA

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Figure 13.2 Grainger at rehearsal, 23 February 1940

Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma. Reproduced by permission of the Dean of the

College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, USA

When interviewed by the local newspaper after the Friday night concert, Grainger commented, “It’s

[the festival] was the best thing of its kind I’ve been a party to”, and when asked what impressed him the

most, he said, “it was the speed with which the students learned the new things, of course, it reflects good

instruction”.13 The paper also reported, “The piano virtuoso who came from ‘down-under’ in Australia and

the uniformed director who toured the country for many years with a circus band combined to give Ada the

most elaborate and colorful musical show in its history.” 14 According to local folklore, after the concert

13 Article in Ada Evening News, 25 February 1940 found in archives of Ada Evening News.

14 Article in Ada Evening News, 25 February 1940 found in archives of Ada Evening News.

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Grainger removed his coat, tie, shirt and shoes for a cold, brisk walk back to his hotel a few blocks away.

Just before arriving, local police stopped and questioned him, possibly for indecent exposure. Arthur

Kennedy, Grainger’s festival chaperon and first oboe player, later arrived on the scene and explained the

circumstances to the satisfaction of the authorities, allowing Grainger to avoid arrest and a night in jail.15

A few weeks later McCall sent local newspaper clippings about the festival, along with concert

programs, to Grainger’s manager, Antonia Morse, in White Plains. Summing up the value of Grainger to

the festival, McCall wrote:

The coming of Mr. Grainger to our campus proved to be even more stimulating musically than we

had anticipated. His musicianship and invigorating personality won him the acclaim of the chorus

and band musicians, citizens, and directors of this area. Never in the history of our festival has any

man so won his audience. We are better for his coming and will never forget.16

In August 1940 McCall informed Grainger that he had just completed a new symphonic band arrangement

of Irish Tune from County Derry.17 The arrangement included an introduction, followed by a Bach-like

fugue, a Schubert-like section, a Wagner-like section and then finally a portion in swing time.18 McCall

asked Grainger for a suggested title and planned to dedicate the arrangement to the memory of Grainger’s

visit to Ada. Unfortunately, no response from Grainger has been uncovered.

Advancement of the Original Wind Band Repertoire by King and Grainger

Karl King and Percy Grainger came from markedly different musical backgrounds: King grew up in the

professional world of American circus bands and writing marches, while Grainger developed a professional

career as a composer-pianist. In the 1930s both sought to fill the growing need of American school bands

15 According to Ada police records located in the Pontotoc County Courthouse, Grainger was not arrested.

16 Harlo McCall, letter to Antonia Morse, 7 March 1940, GM.

17 Harlo McCall, letter to Percy Grainger, 13 August 1940, GM.

18 See McCall, letter to Grainger, 13 August 1940, GM.

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for original literature. But whereas they shared an enthusiasm for school band music and were both

motivated by commercial success, their compositional philosophies were distinctively different.

Karl King was a populist who sought to create marketable works that were singable and technically

easy. As Jess Louis Gerardi, Jr explains, “King was always interested in pleasing his audience. He always

played what he thought the people wanted to hear, and never worried about what other [band] directors

would say about him”.19 According to King,

You have to keep in touch with the public. Keep down on their level a little bit, and when we get

up our programs, let’s don’t think about how they will look in print when we mail them to other

bandmasters. Let’s think a little bit about the people out in front who are there to listen to us. Let’s

make out programs for them! … rather than trying to amaze our fellow bandmasters.20

King’s background with professional circus bands and his marches for school bands made him more aware

of success with the general public. In a letter addressed to publisher Lloyd C. L. Barnhouse Jr, dated

February 10, 1940, King demonstrated his awareness of the needs of the market:

There will always be young bands that can’t play the Manx Overture, etc. and there will always be

beginners starting. For years Geo[rge] Southwell dominated that field (before your time and mine)

and made a lot of money at it. Then J.W. Pepper etc. and Dalby. Your Dad did a lot in that field as

well. … Our cue is to stay close to the beginners. You can put out a lot of easy numbers or even a band book

for what you spend on one big one with full score etc. … If you can’t get enough NEW easy tunes re-advertise

the old. I’ll bet if you put out one bulletin on nothing but easy numbers that you will get some results with

same. Anyway I would like to see you try it.21

More importantly, he expressed his belief in the importance of melody:

Some of the Eastern publishers are trying to put out easy things etc. but they miss the point because

they have such “crappy” tunes. One of the most pitiful examples is Sam Fox. They try to put out easy books

19 Jess Louis Gerardi, Jr, ‘Karl L. King: His Life and Music’, PhD thesis, University of Colorado, 1973, 195.

20 Gerardi, ‘Karl L. King’, 196.

21 Karl King, letter to Lloyd C. L. Barnhouse Jr, 10 February 1940, Band Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.

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that don’t sell and they try to put out big contest numbers that have no tune and are boresome as hell and they

don’t click with either kind! This band movement is going to come down to earth again, I’m telling you.

Near the end of his life in 1966, he summarized his views, saying, “I’ve sung my song. It was a rather

simple one; it wasn’t too involved; I’m happy about it. In the last couple [of] years … I’ve run out of tunes,

I believed it was time to quit, and I’d like to recommend that as a matter of policy to all other composers.”22

Like King, Grainger never composed a melody he could not sing. Yet whereas King pursued a

model of simplicity and commercial marketability, Grainger placed an emphasis on pleasing the performer,

not the audience. In Bird’s words, Grainger “was never an elitist who felt that the creation, recreation, and

enjoyment of art should be restricted to those born with higher sensibilities and sensitivities, but he was

always bitterly opposed to what he felt was unmusical professionalism and academic stuffiness and

artiness”.23

Grainger’s interest in composing for wind band was sparked in 1917–19 during the period of his

enlistment in a US Army band. In his first encounter in 1918 with the band of the Army Music Training

School at Governor’s Island, directed by Arthur A. Clappé, he admired:

its quintet of saxophones, its quartet of alto and bass clarinets, its quartet of oboes, bass oboe and

bassoon, with the tone of its well-rounded bass section so proportioned and controlled so as never

to (except for quite special intentional effects) obscure or over-blare the more subtly expressive

sound colors of its unusually complete wood-wind sections …

and discovered “more than ever before, the truly immense potentialities of the concert wind band as an

emotional musical medium”.24 Many of his earliest band works were published in these years. They

included arrangements of Shepherd’s Hey and Molly on the Shore, and original works including Children’s

22 Quoted at http://www.karlking.us/timeline.htm 1–2 (accessed 24 April 2007).

23 Bird, Percy Grainger, 146.

24 Grainger, ‘Possibilities of the Concert Wind Band from the Standpoint of a Modern Composer (1918)’, Metronome Orchestra

Monthly 34, no. 11 (November 1918), in Grainger on Music, ed. Malcolm Gillies and Bruce Clunies Ross (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1999), 101.

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March: ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, Gumsuckers’ March and Colonial Song. Writing for the Metronome

Orchestra Monthly in 1918, Grainger found it “almost incomprehensible” that contemporary composers

had not considered writing for the modern concert wind band.25 While he acknowledged some forms of

musical expression were best suited to orchestras he contended that “in certain realms of musical

expressiveness the wind band … has no rival”. Foreshadowing what the band “should be and will be”, he

argued that as the band was a modern phenomenon so it should prove a more effective vehicle for modern

compositions than for older works. He concluded this article with the statement,

When we recall the effects produced by Wagner in the “Ring” (in the Valhalla motiv[e] music) by using

tubas plenteously in groups, and by his whole system of group orchestration, we can imagine the equally

magnificent (though wholly different) gamut of group contrasts that the military band will offer to composers

who will possess the insight, enthusiasm and tenacity to bring about the completion in the instrumentation of

concert wind bands of those manifold (but as yet mostly fragmentary) elements that even now prove so

strangely fascinating and attractive to onward-looking creative musicians.26

During the 1927–28 concert seasons, Grainger began to change the direction of his career away

from the concert halls of the big cities and toward the smaller venues of schools and remote towns where

he often experienced more enthusiasm for making music. The difficulty of securing performances during

the Depression and his own financial need forced him to travel thousands of miles between engagements.

In a letter to his former pupil Storm Bull, written in 1937, Grainger recognized the demand for wind band

compositions: “The High School, School and University bands are more numerous than the orchestras. The

publishers regard band publishing as much more lucrative than orchestral publishing, but they are looking

for symphonic band music – away from the militaristic, circus-like, march-like, old type of band music”.27

In 1940, the year that Grainger visited East Central University, he gave many concerts for the Red Cross

25 Grainger, ‘Possibilities of the Concert Wind Band’, 99.

26 Grainger, ‘Possibilities of the Concert Wind Band’, 105.

27 Grainger, letter to Storm Bull, 25 March 1937, in The All-Round Man: Selected Letters of Percy Grainger, 1914–1961, ed.

Malcolm Gillies and David Pear (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 141.

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and troops along with concerts at various other educational institutions. Bird documents nearly two more

decades of such travel.

When Richard Franko Goldman published his book The Band’s Music in 1938 he included a

foreword by Grainger that he urged “should be read, and preferably memorized, by any person seriously

interested in bands or band music”.28 Further, Goldman expressed his indebtedness to Grainger “not only

for his interest in this volume, but also for the stimulation of his ideas and for the many lines of thought and

research he has suggested”. By then American wind band music was at a crossroads. The East Central

Music Festival of 1940 presents an invaluable example of two composers’ unique personalities and views

on band compositions at this critical juncture. For King, the wind band was associated with musical

simplicity and commercial marketability. His objective to “stay close to beginners” contrasted with the

model of forward-looking wind band music exemplified by Grainger’s The Immovable Do, which provides

musicians and listeners with the opportunity to hear moderate dissonances and chord planing techniques.

The work is an uncomplicated vehicle for developing ensemble listening skill through the many pitch

relationships resulting from the constant presence of a common tone.29 Additionally, the uncommon use of

and scoring for complete wind instrument groups provides depth to the bands’ sonority and texture. While

many of Grainger’s goals in writing for band were similar to King’s, through his artistic vision and musical

language he lifted the artistic standard of wind band literature beyond what was simple and marketable. As

he predicted in 1918, with such works in the repertoire, “the wind band will constitute a medium for

emotional musical expression second to nothing that has ever existed in musical history”.30

28 Richard Franko Goldman, The Band’s Music (New York: Pitman Publishing, 1938), vii.

29 See Frederick Fennell, ‘Basic Band Repertory: An Interpretive Analysis of Percy Grainger’s The Immovable Do’,

Instrumentalist 37, no. 10 (May 1983): 34.

30 Grainger, ‘Possibilities of the Concert Wind Band’, 102.

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Supposedly both King and Grainger had a clinic together.

According to Dr. J. Michael Raley, Ernest E. Lyon (1915-2005) taught as a member of the

faculty at the University of Louisville’s School of Music for forty-seven years, from 1938-1985.

Mr. Lyon had met Percy Grainger at a clinic held at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma,

in February of 1940, and as may be seen in the photo attached to this email, the composer

presented Mr. Lyon with an autographed reference copy of his march, “Lads of Wamphray.” I

assume that the gift was made then, though there is no date and Lyon met Grainger on other

occasions. Alternatively, of course, Prof. Lyon might have brought his own copy of the march

with him to the conference and simply asked for the composer's autograph. A program annotated

in Mr. Lyon’s hand from the East Central Music Festival, February 22-23, 1940, which featured

composer-conductors Karl L. King and Percy Grainger, survives in the archives of the University

of Louisville’s Dwight Anderson Music Library (see the photos in my next email message). For

more on all this, see endnote 50 in the attached article.

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It is known that Grainger gave a clinic on the afternoon of Feb. 23 to area choir and band

directors. But, there is no mention in the Ada Evening News or subsequent letters found of King

and Grainger shared a clinic or meeting with the directors on the future of wind band music.

In August of 1940, McCall wrote Grainger a letter informing him that he had just

completed a new symphonic band arrangement of Irish Tune from County Derry. The

arrangement included as introduction, followed by a Bach-like fugue, a Schubert-like section, a

Wagner-like section and then finally a portion in swing time! McCall intended to dedicate it to

the memory of Grainger’s visit to Ada. Unfortunately, no response from Grainger exists.

See McCall’s letter to Grainger after the clinic:

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