History of the School of Music
A half-century ago, the UT Department of Fine Arts began to offer academic programs in music as well as the visual arts. Of course UT had had “extra-curricular” music throughout its previous 155 years: music for fun, for worship, for military drill. Few American universities introduced training in the arts as an academic discipline—alongside philosophy, languages, and sciences—before the 20th century. UT did so only about mid-century. But there were some important forerunners:
- 1869 - Gustav Knabe – German immigrant, graduate of the Conservatory at Leipzig—organized UT’s cadet marching band and served as its director for some twenty years. He was already known in Knoxville as “a master and an authority in all matters relating to music.” The band was later known as the ROTC band, and much later, since the early 1950s, as the “Pride of the Southland.”
- 1902 - The Summer School of the South opened on the UT campus. Its annual sessions attracted school teachers from all over the South, offering them courses in “Common School Subjects and Methods” ranging form reading and arithmetic to music. It was eventually absorbed by the College of Education, and its school-music courses ultimately became the Department of Music Education.
- 1937 - A report commissioned by Dean Lexemuel R. Hesler of the College of Liberal Arts recommended the creation of an “experimental” Department of Fine Arts—not for professional training in the arts, but simply to acquaint UT students with “the history and basic theory” of the various arts, possibly providing some “enrichment and harmonizing” of their lives. Nothing came of that recommendation, however, for ten years, until money started flowing into the university with the GIs returning from World War II.
- 1946 - Associate Professors of Music Education in the College of Education Lester S. Bucher and John Clark Rhodes were the first music faculty to be appointed to the regular faculty of UT. These two tried to offer a full array of music and music education courses during the regular academic year as well as in the summer—a daunting task for two professors. They soon joined others in the community in calling for a separate department to handle training in music and the visual arts so that they could concentrate on the pedagogy of music.
- 1947 - At last – a Department of Fine Arts was created in the College of Liberal Arts. (The Department of Art and Music Education remained in the College of Education—administratively separate from the Departments of Music and Art—for more than forty years.) Composer, conductor, and flutist David Van Vactor arrived from Chicago via Kansas City to head the new department and to become the new conductor of Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. The only other full-time faculty member in music that first year was pianist Alfred L. Schmied from St. Louis. Van Vactor’s copyist George DeVine came to serve as the department’s secretary and administrative assistant. Several local musicians served as part-time instructors of applied music. C. Kermit Ewing arrived in January, 1948 to create direct and teach in the program for visual arts.
During a concert tour of Europe, opera star Grace Moore, “the Tennessee Nightingale,” died January 26 in a plane crash just after take-off from Copenhagen.
- 1949 - Dr. John Carl Tegnell arrived to become the first full-time voice teacher and to take over the choral program, which had remained in Music Education. William Starr, violinist, began his long tenure as a teacher in the department and as the concertmaster of the Knoxville Symphony.
The university’s radio station, WUOT, began broadcasting, 300watts FM, at first five-and-a-half hours each weekday. Programming included occasional performances by music faculty and students.
- 1950 - The first competition for the Grace Moore Scholarship in voice was held in April. The winner was Mary Boswell of Gallatin Tennessee.
Since the ROTC (marching) band excluded women and served largely for public relations, ceremonies, and especially football games, the Department of Fine Arts organized a concert band with an eye to the training of future school band directors. The concert band would have soon expired, however, for lack of budgetary support, save for the efforts of Mr. DeVine who nursed it along for some years.
- 1952 - Mr. Van Vactor relinquished his position as head of the department and was replaced by Mr. Schmied, who directed the department for the next twenty years.
- 1953 - Ambrose Holford, who had replaced Dr. Tegnell in voice and the choral program, staged and directed the first opera undertaken by the department, Mozart’s Marrige of Figaro. The Junior Chamber of Commerce backed the two performances at the Bijou Theater. The cast, chorus, and orchestra included many students, as well as faculty members and townspeople. During Succeeding years Mr. Holford and newly arrived baritone Edward Zambara developed a highly successful choral program and opera workshop.
Music Education rose to the status of a department in the College of Education with Dr. Erwin Schneider as Head. The Department of Fine Arts inaugurated its program for the Bachelor of Music degree.
- 1960 - W.J. Julian began his thirty-year career as director of the band program. All the bands, the Pride of the Southland marching band as well as the concert bands, were now put, at least administratively, in the Department of Music Education (although many of the players in the marching band were neither music nor music-education majors).
The East Tennessee Scottish Rite Temple Consistory endowed a Chair of Choral Art, directed by Mr. Holford, which across the years brought to the campus many persons of high esteem in the field, such as Robert Shaw, Noah Greenburg, Hugh Ross, and Julias Herford.
- 1962 - Department of Fine Arts and Art and Music Education became associate members
of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). Dr. Alfred W. Humphreys succeeded Dr. Ewin Schneider as Head of the Department of Art and Music Education.
- 1963 - The Department of Fine Arts initiated graduate programs in music, offering the Master of Music (performance) and the Master of Arts degrees. The UT Singers were designated “Good Will Ambassadors of the State of Tennessee” by Governor Clement and made their third tour of Europe.
- 1964 - After some seventeen years of coexistence in the Fine Arts Department – which had always been headed by a musician – Art and Music became separate departments. The Department of Art and Music Education remained in the College of Education while continuing to share facilities, personnel, and students with the Department of Music and Art.
- 1965 - The Department of Music and the Department of Art and Music Education moved into the new Music Building on Volunteer Boulevard. Throughout their eighteen years of existence the Departments had made do with inadequate housing – in old residences and in “Splinter Hall,” a “temporary” barracks acquired afer the war from the army. The new $1.4 million building was obviously cause for celebration, even if it was already crowded in its first year.
- 1968 - The Department of Music added to the faculty its first full-time teacher of percussion. The departmental reports lauded that teacher, Michael Combs, “for developing the percussion program in one year from a state of somnambulism to one of the most active ensemble groups in the department.” Dr. Donald Pederson, newly appointed to the theory program, began to introduce computer applications in the curriculum. With the advent in the mid-70s of microcomputers (personal computers) he began to develop computer-assisted instruction in music together with a microcomputer-based lab.
- 1971 - The Music Library became an official branch of the University Libraries.
- 1972 - Alfred Schmied ended his twenty-year tenure as Head of the Music Department but continued as professor of piano until his retirement in 1977. Dr. Herbert Ford was appointed Head.
David Van Vactor retired in December, in mid-season, from his 25-year position as conductor of the Knoxville Symphony. Two years later the state legislature named him “Composer Laureate of the State of Tennessee.”
- 1973 - Pauline Shaw (Bayne) was appointed Head of the Music Library, and all budgetary support and administration were transferred from the Department of Music to the University Libraries. Donald Neuen joined the Department as Director of Choral Activities.
- 1974 - Composer Dr. Kenneth Jacobs joined the faculty to build an electronic-music studio and develop a program in electronic music.
- 1975 - Dr. Charles Ball was appointed Head of the Department of Music Education. The noted “pioneer” in the pedagogy of jazz, Jerry Coker, arrived to create and head a program in jazz.
Dr. J. Clark Rhodes died on December 9.
- 1976 - William Starr, faculty member since 1949, was appointed Head of the Department of Music.
Arpad Joo directed the Knoxville Symphony in the world premiere of David Van Vactor’s Fifth Symphony, and the composer retired from his teaching post in the Department of Music.
C. Kermit (“Buck”) Ewing, the founding Head of the Art Department, died while vacationing with his wife in Bali.
- 1977 - Alfred Leo Schmied retired after thirty years of teaching piano in the Department. The following Thanksgiving Day he severed two-thirds of his left index finger in a woodworking accident and promptly began to learn how to play the piano with nine fingers.
In this, the year before his retirement Mr. Holford led the UT Singers in a concert tour behind the Iron Curtain.
- 1978 - A new tracker-action pipe organ built by Gabriel Kney of London, Ontario, was installed in the fourth-floor organ studio. John Brock of the music faculty played the dedicatory recital April 9.
- 1979 - Dr. Marvelene Moore, a specialist in music for elementary grades, was appointed to the faculty of the Department of Music Education on the retirement of Dr. Juliaette Jones.
- 1982 - Flutist John Meacham replaced William Starr as Head of the Department of Music. Mr. Starr retired and moved to Colorado, where he is still active as a leading American exponent and teacher of the Suzuki program. Dr. David Stutzenberger was appointed Director of Choral Activities.
Mr. Schmeid, 74, died on April 26.
- 1985 - George DeVine retired after thirty-eight years of service in the Department of Music. In the early years of the Department of Fine Arts he was administrative assistant to the Head, but also taught orchestration and music appreciation and directed the concert band. His principle subjects, however, were soon to be in the domain of music history. He also helped develop the music library, which was named for him at his retirement dinner. In addition to his service to the University, he played bassoon in the Knoxville Symphony for some twenty years and wrote the program notes for the KSO for forty years. Mr. DeVine, a largely self-taught musician and scholar and a dedicated teacher, steadily rose through the ranks to become a Full Professor at the University – with no college degree whatsoever, but only a diploma from the Carl Schurz High School in Chicago.
- 1990 - John Meacham resigned as Head of the Department at the end of the spring session, and Dr. Kenneth Keeling was appointed the sixth Head of the Music Department. Besides chairing other university music departments before coming to UT, Dr. Keeling had served the National Association of Schools of Music for some years – and continued to do so – as an evaluator of academic music departments around the country. His achievements at UT in fact included reaccreditation of the Department of Music by NASM. He also worked for more community involvement with the department. Apart from his administrative duties, Dr. Keeling usually taught a class each semester and performed frequently on the clarinet in ensemble performances and in the KSO.
- 1991 - In June the Board of Trustees approved the marriage of Music Education and Music – after forty-four years of their sometimes uneasy cohabitation – to form one department in the College of Liberal Arts with Dr. Kenneth Keeling as Head
- 1994 - David Van Vactor died in Los Angeles, March 24, shortly before his 88th birthday.
The old residence at 1515 West Cumberland Avenue, the original home of the Department of Music, was demolished during the summer to make way for the new Law School building.
- 1995 - Dr. Keeling resigned at the end of the spring semester to become head of the music school at Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Associate Head Dolly Davis was appointed Acting Head, Professor John Brock, Acting Associate Head.
- 1997 - Dr. Gary Sousa was appointed Director of Bands. A national search for a permanent Head of the Department of Music, put on hold in the previous year, was resumed.