Program Notes A Salute to America

About the Music

Concert Overview

• John Stafford Smith  The Star Spangled Banner
• John Williams  Overture from The Cowboys
• Sara Corry  Journey Home
• Alton A. Adams  The Governor’s Own
• Florence Price  Ticklin’ Toes
• Richard Rodgers  Symphonic Scenario from South Pacific
• Intermission
• John Williams  Olympic Fanfare and Theme
• Aaron Copland  Happy Ending from The Red Pony
• John Williams  Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan
• John Philip Sousa  The Black Horse Troop
• Traditional  Armed Forces Medley
• Richard Rogers  Victory at Sea

A fireworks display will take place immediately following the concert, weather permitting.

About the Concert

Loras John Schissel, senior musicologist at the Library of Congress for more than 30 years, has conducted the Blossom Festival Band since 1998, but he has not performed for audiences there since 2019. “I miss everyone who comes to those concerts, and I miss the musicians terribly, so [returning] is going to be, maybe the best way to describe it is tears of joy,” Schissel says.

This pair of Salute to America concerts marks a welcome return for Schissel, who celebrates the 246th birthday of the United States with a diverse program that balances three types of music: music for the feet, music for the mind, and music for the heart.

The first category, “music for the feet,” is a Schissel specialty. An expert on American march music, he notes that the genre carries a tempo of 120 beats per minute, perfect for synchronizing troops on the move. Tonight’s program features three marches.“The Black Horse Troop” by “March King” John Philip Sousa was dedicated to a Cleveland National Guard unit, which rode exclusively black horses and the Sousa Band escorted before heading off to fight in the Spanish-American War. “The Governor’s Own” was written in 1921 by the Navy’s first Black bandmaster, Alton A. Adams, while Thomas Knox, chief composer and arranger for the U.S. Military Band in the 1970s and early ’80s, salutes all branches of the U.S. military with his arrangement of an Armed Forces Medley.

“Music for the mind” stimulates our imaginations with works like Aaron Copland’s “Happy Ending” from The Red Pony suite and Florence Price’s “Ticklin’ Toes.” Written for the film adaptation of the classic John Steinbeck novella, Copland’s joyous finale culminates with his trademark open chords and bombastic percussion. Price’s “Ticklin’ Toes,” is a lively and rhythmically complex study based on the Juba, a dance passed down among enslaved people on American plantations.

John Williams, whose film scores capture our inner child and tug at our heartstrings, and Richard Rodgers, author of a large swath of the American Songbook, tick off the last category, “music for the heart.” Williams’s overture from The Cowboys sends hearts soaring across his depiction of the expansive American plains. He marks the triumph of the human spirit in his Olympic Fanfare and Theme, while the score to 1998’s Saving Private Ryan with its “Hymn to the Fallen” solemnly and poignantly remembers those who made the ultimate sacrifice. The dual nature of war as a platform for extraordinary acts of heroism alongside devastating and irreversible losses, is also embedded in Rodgers’s World War II–themed South Pacific and Victory at Sea.

As fireworks cap off this Fourth of July celebration, no one will revel in the restored tradition as Schissel. “The music is obviously a huge part of it, but the people in front of me and the people behind me, without them, the whole thing’s a dud,” he says. “There’s nothing like turning around and seeing the entire pavilion filled and the grass completely filled.”

Featured Artists

Loras John Schissel Conductor

Loras John Schissel has served as conductor of the Blossom Festival Band since 1998. He is the founding music director of Arlington-based Virginia Grand Military Band, comprised of current and former members of the four major U.S. service bands. In 2005, he was elected to the American Bandmasters Association. In 2007, he made his debut with The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance.

Mr. Schissel is a senior musicologist at the Library of Congress and a leading authority on the music of Percy Aldridge Grainger, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Serge Koussevitzky. He co-authored, with John Philip Sousa IV (great-grandson of the composer), John Philip Sousa’s America: A Patriot’s Life in Images and Words. Mr. Schissel is currently at work on the book The Musical Works of Karl L. King with Gene Milford of University of Akron.

Mr. Schissel has traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia conducting orchestras, bands, and choral ensembles. As a composer and orchestrator, Mr. Schissel has an extensive catalogue of more than 500 works for orchestra, symphonic wind band, and jazz ensemble.

In 2020, Mr. Schissel was honored by the National Band Association for excellence and exceptional service to band music. He has been commissioned to write a memoir detailing his friendships with 20th-century composers, which grew out of online presentations he gave for groups from middle school orchestras to the graduate composition department at The Juilliard School during the pandemic.

A native of Iowa, Mr. Schissel studied brass instruments and conducting with Carleton Stewart, Frederick Fennell, and John Paynter.

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Blossom Festival Band Ensemble

Considered one of the finest ensembles of its kind in the nation, the Blossom Festival Band continues a long and well-loved tradition of outdoor band concerts in the United States. Since the second annual Blossom Music Festival in 1969, band music has been a part of the summer musical offerings at Blossom. From 1969 to 1973, these band concerts were conducted by Meredith Willson (composer of Broadway’s The Music Man). Based on the success of these concerts, a genuine symphonic band and concert program was organized under the direction of Leonard B. Smith, music director of the nationally known Detroit Concert Band. Smith served as director from 1972 until his retirement in 1997. Since 1998, the Blossom Festival Band has been conducted by Loras John Schissel.

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