Evening star., 1944-07-23
Music
Notes
Pan.American Union
Presents Concert
By Navy Students
BY ALICE EVERSMAN.

The beautiful Aztec Garden of
the Pan-American Union again will
be the scene of an al fresco con-
cert when, on Tuesday night at $50
o'clock the concert band and chorus
Of the Navy School of Music will
give a program under the direction
Of 1t. q. g. James Thurmond. On
the same program will be heard the
Cuban mezzo-soprano, Carolina Sc
grera, who began her public career
at La Scala, Milan, after study in
Italy and has sung extensively in
opera as well as in song recitals.
She will be heard in a group of
numbers by Latin-American COM
posers.
The young musicians from the
Navy School have added to their
fame with each appearance. They
are serious students, many of them
with already acquired regulations
in civilian life, who will go out on
graduation in groups of % men,
bers as band units for services at
naval stations and on battleships.
But they have war duty as well,
taking their turn at watches and
in manning battle stations and on
aircraft carriers especially, serving
as stretcher bearers. They have
given their lives for their country,
and the names of the men aboard
the Arizona on that fatal December
I, those on the Yorktown and Hell
ena are inscribed on a memorial
plaque in the school. In one in
stance a graduate unit from the
school played concerts within 40
miles of CaSablanca.
This war not only has proved
how welcome music is on board a
man-o'-war but has resulted in an
enlarged program of training and
selecting to provide the best mate
rial. What began in a small way
with crews of warships organizing
their own bands has now been
systematized so that sailors can
have the finest of whatever kind of
music they like best, classical, pop
ular and all types of dance music.
The first record of a band on a
warship is from 1920, when an anna
teur group was organized on the
Cyrano. But Is years earlier the
United States Navy was guilty of
kidnapping band. so great was the
desire to hear music. 1t seems that
the 28-gun corvette Boston put into
the port of MeSSina while on a
Mediterranean station. From one
OF the regiments at that port band
was sent to entertain the Americans
as part of the official courteSies. So
the band that he set sail Immediate
ly for home, carrying the musicians,
despite protest, with him. The kid
mapping had no further conse-
quences, since the band was returned
as soon as our Government heard
what had happened. In 1912 the
Navy acquired another band by cap
ture when the frigate United States
was victorious over the British Mace
donian.
The Constitution also had a band
of sorts in 1927 but the first official
recognition of the band as part of
the Navy was in 1888. The members
of those early bands were usually
drawn from the crews but later" men
enlisted for service in the musical
units. One of the most distinguished
of the Navy musicians was Theodore
Thomas, who enlisted as second
class musician in 1849 at the age of
IA. From the meager few Navy
musicians of the early days the
number has grown and the Navy
School now provides the fight
ing sailors with hundreds of we'll
trained players whose roles as
morale builders cannot be too highly
evaluated.