The Goldman Band was an American concert band founded in 1918 by

Edwin Franko Goldman Edwin Franko Goldman (January 1, 1878 – February 21, 1956) was an American composer and conductor. One of the most significant American band composers of the early 20th century, Goldman composed over 150 works, but is best known for his marches. ...

from his previous New York Military Band. Both bands were based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. It was Goldman's contention that the New York symphony and orchestra musicians in the summer bands of the time, rarely rehearsed and did not take these performances very seriously. He saw the potential for starting a really good wind ensemble. The Goldman Band's first concert under that name was in 1920 at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. The program was representative of Goldman's choices in transcriptions and original works including compositions of

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

Victor Herbert Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is bes ...

Edward MacDowell Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites '' Woodland Sketches'', ''Sea Pieces'' and '' ...

Johan Svendsen Johan Severin Svendsen (30 September 184014 June 1911) was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, he lived most his life in Copenhagen, Denmark. Svendsen's output includes two symphonies, a violin ...

Ambroise Thomas Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas '' Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet'' (1868). Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the Conservatoire de ...

, Richard Wagner, and Karl Michael Ziehrer. For ninety-three years the Goldman Band performed free public concerts at a variety of venues in New York City, including on the Green at Columbia,

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

, Prospect Park, and at the Guggenheim Bandshell at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

. Famous instrumental and vocal performers appeared with the band along with guest conductors such as

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...

and Vivian Dunn. Traditional and classical works were performed as well as new works for band. Goldman requested new works for band from European composers including Ottorino Respighi, Albert Roussel, and

Jaromir Weinberger Jaromír, Jaromir, Jaroměr is a Slavic male given name. Origin and meaning Jaromír is a West Slavic given name composed of two stems ''jaro'' and ''mír''. The meaning is not definite: * Polish ''jary'' (archaic) = „spry, young, strong“; '' ...

. With professional musicians and endowment funds from the Guggenheim Foundation, the band was able to perform in New York and also tour the U.S. and Canada and perform on radio and television. The Goldman Band was widely considered the successor to the

John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to dis ...

band. Many of Sousa's musicians went on to play with the Goldman Band including Henry Heidelberg (piccolo); Johnny Carr, Raymond Scott, Emil Preiss and Joseph Chaney (clarinet); Del Staigers, Oscar B. Short and George Fee (cornet); Wayne Lewis (euphonium) and William Bell (tuba player). In 1983, the Guggenheim Foundation withdrew funding to concentrate on social justice issues, and the band had to start fundraising from other sources, and shortened their season to thirty-five concerts over a seven-week period.

Conductors after Edwin Franko Goldman

After Goldman's death at age 78 in 1956, his son,

Richard Franko Goldman Richard Franko Goldman (December 7, 1910 – January 19, 1980) was a conductor, educator, author, music critic, and composer. Born Richard Henry Maibrunn Goldman (Maibrunn being his mother's family name), he adopted the same middle name as ...

, took the podium until 1979; the year before his death in 1980.

Ainslee Cox Ainslee Cox (June 22, 1936, Big Spring, Texas – September 5, 1988, New York City) was an American conductor. A graduate of Westminster Choir College and the University of Texas at Austin, he was associate conductor of the American Symphony Orch ...

served as co-conductor with Goldman beginning in 1968, and was sole conductor of the band from 1979 until his death in 1988. Gene Young succeeded Cox as director until 1997. He was followed by David Eaton (1997-2000), and the last conductor was Christian Wilhjelm.

Some premieres

Over the years a large number of famous composers have written for the band. The Goldman Band gave the first complete performance of Percy Grainger's composition

Lincolnshire Posy ''Lincolnshire Posy'' is a musical composition by Percy Grainger for concert band commissioned in 1937 by the American Bandmasters Association. Considered by John Bird, the author of Grainger's biography, to be his masterpiece, the work has six ...

in the summer of 1937. The first performance of

Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...

’s Suite française, Op. 248 was performed by the Goldman Band on June 13, 1945. The first performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Theme and Variations for Full Band, op.43a, was performed by the Goldman Band on June 27, 1946, with Richard Franko Goldman conducting. On June 23, 1947 the band and a chorus of 200 performed the American premiere of Hector Berlioz’s

Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale ''Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale'' (English: ''Grand Funeral and Triumphal Symphony''), Op. 15, is the fourth and last symphony by the French composer Hector Berlioz, first performed on 28 July 1840 in Paris. It is one of the earliest ...

. The band premiered Robert Russell Bennett's Rose Variations for cornet and band with James F. Burke (musician) as the cornet soloist. The band also premiered Bennett's last major composition for band, Autobiography, on June 22, 1977. The band made numerous recordings for Capitol Records, American Decca,

RCA Victrola RCA Victrola was a budget record label introduced by RCA Victor in the early 1960s to reissue classical recordings originally released on the RCA Victor " Red Seal" label. The name "Victrola" came from the early console phonographs first market ...

, and

New World Records New World Records is a record label that was established in 1975 through a Rockefeller Foundation grant to celebrate America's bicentennial (1976) by producing a 100-LP anthology, with American music from many genres.flutes, two

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...

s, one E-flat clarinet, one bass clarinet, nineteen clarinets (eight firsts, six seconds, five thirds), two alto saxophones, one

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

, one baritone saxophone, two bassoons, four cornets, four

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

s, five

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

s, six

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

s, two

euphonium The euphonium is a medium-sized, 3 or 4-valve, often compensating, conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument that derives its name from the Ancient Greek word ''euphōnos'', meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced" ( ''eu'' means "well" o ...

s, four

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

s, two

string basses The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Simila ...

, one harp, and three

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

ists.

Cornet and trumpet soloists

Cornet solos were a featured attraction at most Goldman Band concerts. In 1960, Richard Franko Goldman began to use trumpet soloists in addition to cornet soloists. (Best viewed at 75% screen resolution.) Ernest S

Cornet Trios, Quartets and Quintets

Cornet trios (and the occasional quartet or brass quintet) were also featured at many Goldman Band concerts. The trio of Leonard B. Smith (Musician), Frank Elsass and John "Ned" Mahoney were known as "The Three Aces".

Cessation of operations

In April 2005, negotiations between the band's negotiating committee and the board of directors broke down after the committee failed to get an extension to play at their Memorial Day concert. The board of directors presented various offers with other band members; among them was a proposal to remove five musicians from the band to 48 players. According to then-secretary Mark Heter, the reduction "would not have cut any of the band's 45 tenured posts." The offer also included removing musicians from the board of directors, as well as eliminating the season guarantee from their concerts. However, the committee declined their offer on May 22. Five days later, on May 27, the Goldman Band ceased operations, ending 87 years of service.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Goldman biographyEdwin Franko Goldman collection
at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

. Retrieved 31 Jul 2013.
Goldman Band Discography
American instrumental musical groups Musical groups established in 1918 Musical groups disestablished in 2005