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Uncatalogued documents recently discovered in storage at the University of Louisville's Dwight Anderson Music Library, together with letters housed in the New York City Public Library's Special Collections, have made it possible for the first time to reconstruct the history of a nearly-forgotten episode involving members of the University of Louisville Concert Band and Ernest E. Lyon (1915-2005), who served as their director from 1938-1958. G.I.s returning home to the University of Louisville [U of L] in the late 1940s and early 1950s, having played in the military service bands during the Second World War and Korean War, witnessed Ernest Lyon's zeal for new and original compositions for concert band and became infected by his desire to play more than just the standard marches and band transcriptions of their day. Beginning in December 1949, under Professor Lyon's guidance, a group of twelve of these students decided to pool their own earnings from playing for dances on campus with the University of Louisville Cardinals big band along with their membership dues from a newly-formed music fraternity,
Pi Kappa Omicron [PKO], to commission new, original works for concert band annually from such prominent composers as Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987), Gordon Jacob (1895-1984), and William Schuman (1910-1992). One of the keys to the success of the fraternity's efforts, aside from the composers' generosity in accepting the commissions for nominal fees, lay in the fact that these composers put forth their best effort in their commissions and wrote challenging music for band.1 The short-lived effort came to an end in 1958, but during its brief lifetime the University of Louisville's PKO commissioning project under Ernest Lyon's direction produced a number of important original works for concert band by world-class composers, three of which today are still considered standard repertoire for university and college concert bands. This littleknown story thus comprises an important chapter in the history of twentieth-century music as well as in the history of the development of a distinct literature for concert band, while from a didactic perspective the PKO fraternity remains a model for educators of all disciplines to follow in encouraging students to take ownership of their own learning and public service projects.
The Birth of Pi Kappa Omicron (1949-1958) and the PKO's Commissioning of New...