Special Thursday Online Presentation: ABA’s Little Light During the Great Depression

First ABA Convention Photograph of Elected Officers, March 13-16, 1930. Victor Grabel, Charles O’Neill, John Philip Sousa, Edwin Franko Goldman, Frank Simon, and A. Austin Harding (left to right).

The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music was organized in 1994 with the transfer of the John Philip Sousa and the Herbert L. Clarke personal papers, and other related special collections from University Bands to the University Library.  The Center holds the world’s single largest archives of original music compositions and arrangements by John Philip Sousa originally donated to University Bands in 1932.  Its collections fall into four distinct topical areas:  wind band music, electronic music, ethnomusicology, and the Urbana-Champaign local music scene.  The Sousa Archives arranges, describes, and makes its collections accessible in support of scholarship, exhibitions, publications, and education both to University students and faculty, K-12 public and private school students in Central Illinois, and the public.  In addition, it strives to define and clarify the role that organized archives and museums play in American culture.

Archivist for Music and Fine Arts and Sousa Archives Director, Scott Schwartz, will talk briefly about the work of the Center for American Music and its upcoming exhibit, American Bandmasters Association’s Little Light: Austin Harding’s Legacy during the Great Depression.

Space is limited and registration is required.  A Zoom link will be provided immediately after registration.