Holdings Fine Arts and Applied Arts University Bands Fred and Connie Fairchild P... Finding Aid Holdings Fine Arts and Applied Arts University Bands Fred and Connie Fairchild P... Finding Aid By Kelli McQueen
Title: Fred and Connie Fairchild Parkland College Band and ISYM Records and Audio Recordings, 1959-2020
ID: 12/9/173
Primary Creator: Parkland College Band (1969-)
Other Creators: Illinois Summer Youth Music (ISYM)
Extent: 1.25 cubic feet
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by type of material.
Date Acquired: 12/23/2021. More info below under Accruals.
Subjects: Bands, Local History
Formats/Genres: Concert Programs
The collection consists of concert programs, correspondence, course syllabi, newspaper clippings, photographs and sound recordings documenting the Parkland College Band and Illinois Summer Youth Music program between 1959 and 2020. Fred Fairchild was on the ISYM percussion faculty 1970-1997 and was Advanced Percussion Camp Headmaster 1984-1997. It also includes a newly published history of the Parkland College band, Parkland Concert Band: The First Fifty Years that was published in 2021.
The Parkland College Band started forming December 8, 1969 and began rehearsals the first week of January 1970, two and half years after classes first started at the community college. Carolyn Whitney, who helped start the original band, served as its director for the first season and its first concert took place on March 3rd of that year. An announcement placed in Champaign's News-Gazette on February 27, 1970 invited instrumentalists with at least two years of experience to join the free, non-credit, class as a community band. The first rehearsal began with twelve musicians but after six weeks, the ensemble had doubled in size. In 2001, the community ensemble had grown to 117 members.
The band originally rehearsed in the basement of the First Methodist Church in downtown Champaign. However, because of the rehearsal hall's low ceiling, the band eventually moved its rehearsals to the Jefferson Life Building on Hill Street. Beginning in 1978 the community band finally began regular rehearsals on the Parkland College campus.
Although Carolyn Whitney served as the band's first director, her music background was choral music. When Erwin "Ernie" Hoffman, hired in 1970 as a full-time faculty member for Parkland's music department, he started as the college's choral director even though his music background was directing wind ensembles. However, beginning in 1971, he took over directorship of the Parkland band from Whitney, who became the college's choir director, and he remained the band's director until 1996. Since Hoffmanâ??s departure from Parkland College, the band has had eight different conductors including William Worra (1997-2001), Gregory Grove (2001-2005), Jeffrey Marshall (2005-2008), Verlin Richardson, Joseph Manfredo and Michael Allen (Fall 2008), Joseph Manfredo (2009-2011) and Lawrence Stoner (2011-2020). Currently Matthew Dixon, a trombonist and DMA alumnus from the University of Illinois, became the Parkland Band's eighth director in 2020.
The Parkland College Band continues to serve the community by providing a creative performance outlet for amateur instrumentalists, and brings together different communities through collaborations with high school bands and other community bands around Central Illinois.
Repository: The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music
Parkland College Concert Band: The First Fifty Years 1970-2020 donated by Marilyn Marshall, November 16, 2021. An addition of sound recordings of the Parkland College Community Band and Connie and Fred Fairchild's programs and ISYM sound recordings was made on July 5, 2022.
Audio cassette of the 1997 Parkland Band concert with program and explanatory note and all of Series 3 were donated by Connie Fairchild on September 7, 2023.
Acquisition Source: Connie Fairchild
Acquisition Method: Gift
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