American Bandmasters Association
Research Center

NEWS:
Rare Recording Named to the National Recording Registry

A rare 78-rpm recording from the Lynn Sams Papers has been added to the National Recording Registry by the Librarian of Congress. The UM Libraries is evidently one of extremely few institutions owning a copy. The 1930 recording of the Modesto, Calif., High School Band playing Beethoven�s Egmont Overture, Op. 84, is the only known recording made by a high school band participating in the National High School Band contests held between 1926 and 1934. Under the direction of Frank Mancini, Modesto High School placed third in the 1927 and 1928 contests, and second in 1929. Limited edition high school band recordings were once common, produced as fundraising tools for school bands and treasured as souvenirs by band members. However, few high school bands were recorded before the advent of tape recording and long-playing discs in the late 1940s.

Listen to the recording

The American Bandmasters Association

In the summer of 1928, Captain William Stannard, Leader of the United States Army Band, recorded his vision for the American Bandmasters Association in a letter to Albert Austin Harding, Director of Bands at the University of Illinois, "we conceived the idea of creating an ABA for the purpose of furthering the interests of outstanding American Band Masters, and of interesting composers, arrangers, and music publishers in Wind Band music." One of the ways in which the American Bandmasters Association would come to further the interests of bandmasters and scholars was through the formation of the American Bandmasters Association Research Center.

The American Bandmasters Association Research Center was brought to the University of Maryland at College Park on June 3, 1963, as the result of an agreement between the American Bandmasters Association (ABA) and the University of Maryland to jointly sponsor an agency that would provide a repository and clearing house for materials and information concerning the history and development of the wind band. The first director of the Research Center was Arthur H. Brandenburg, and the first chairman was Dr. Paul Yoder. The music librarian at the University of Maryland at the time of the Center's establishment was Fred Heutte.

The American Bandmasters Association Research Center holds the papers and collections of several ABA members, as well as the archives of the ABA itself. In addition, the ABA Research Center has a large number of band scores, photographs, and recordings.

Please note that this set of web pages is under construction, and not all of the ABA Research Center's collections are described here. Researchers should contact the curator about additional topics covered in the ABA Research Center's collections. In addition to the major collections discussed here, the ABA Research Center maintains files on specific individuals, bands, and subjects, photograph collections, books, research papers, and journals.

Access: Materials in the American Bandmasters Association Research Center must be used in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library's Irving and Margery Morgan Lowens Room for Special Collections, 10 to 5, Monday through Friday. Please make an appointment with the curator to examine items.

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