Music Trade Review

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An Experiment in
Training Juvenile Orchestras
© Photo by Spencer & Wyckoff
The National High School Orchestra Summer Gamp, for which
J. E. Maddy is responsible, completes its first year with great
success, leading to an invitation to take the National High
School Orchestra for a European tour during the next summer
By B. BRITTAIN WILSON
HE National High School Orchestra
Summer Camp, considered by some as
a rather doubtful experiment last
Spring, is now in a fair way to become
an international institution, for the fame of the
National High School Orchestra has spread to
Europe, and J. E. Maddy, head of the School
Music Department of the University of Michi-
gan, member of the Committee on Instrumental
Affairs of the Music Supervisors' National Con-
ference, and directly responsible for the organ-
ization of the orchestra and the establishment
of the Summer camp, has been invited to take
that orchestra abroad next Summer, have it play
T
in London; and appear in Geneva at the second
International Educational Conference and then
the Third Anglo-American Music Conference.
The invitation to send the National High
School Orchestra to Europe came from Percy
Scholes, prominent British musical authority,
who heard the orchestra play at the National
Music Supervisors' Conference in Chicago in
the Spring, and who immediately declared it to
be the finest juvenile orchestra in the world.
Following the invitation, Mr. Maddy has re-
ceived many letters and telegrams from men
and women throughout the country interested
in high school music urging its acceptance,
3
among them being P. P. Claxton, formerly
United States Commissioner of Education; Ran-
dall J. Condon, past-president of the Division
of Superintendents of the National Educational
Association; Howard Hanson, head of the East-
ern School of Music at Rochester; George
Gartlan, Director of Music in public schools of
New York; Mabelle Glenn, president of the
Music Supervisors' National Conference, and
many others of prominence.
In talking to The Review regarding the
project Mr. Maddy declared it was entirely
feasible and most desirable in that it would
serve to center nation-wide attention upon the
National High School Orchestra and develop
keen competition among young musicians to
attend the Summer camp with a view to finding
a permanent place in the orchestra and winning
a highly desirable trip to Europe. Of course
there will arise the question of financing, but
those keen for the project anticipate little dif-
ficulty in making satisfactory arrangements to
that end.
In extending the invitation to the orchestra
{Continued on page 21)