Music Festivals

 

Look inside this program to see the details of performances at Charlotte's first "Grand Music Festival" of 1890

First Grand Music Festival 1890

Following the national trend, Charlotte held its first Music Festival on June 13^th -14^th 1890.  At a time when there was no easy way to record music, such festivals played a significant role in increasing the exposure of the American public to a wide variety of musical performances.  Guest artists raised the level of sophistication and professionalism, while local choirs and orchestras participated with great enthusiasm.  Charlotte’s hosting of the “First Grand Music Festival of The State Of North Carolina” was an indication that the city was growing in cultural sophistication.  The Festival was held in the Tryon Street Tabernacle, a temporary structure that had been built to house the earlier Sam Jones Revival, but even before it was over plans were underway to build a city auditorium for the next festival.  At its conclusion the festival was hailed as a great success, drawing 6,000 people to four concerts.  The Salisbury Watchman was lavish in its praise:

As usual Charlotte has done all of her whole duty.  Her musical festival was a success; it was more, it was a triumph…Charlotte is apart in that she has a happy blending of hospitality with business of higher reach and culture of patriotic endeavor and moral advancement as yokefellows with the pursuit of the sordid…. All honor to her.  Take her through and through, there isn’t cleaner, straighter grain than hers to be found anywhere; and if this is her way of queening it over her sisters, why,long may she wave![1]

Old Salem Orchestra

The Old Salem Orchestra under the leadership of George F. Markgraff was the resident orchestra for Charlotte’s first music festival.  They opened the fourth and final concert of the festival with the overture from Adrien Boieldieu’s opera The Caliph of Baghdad.[1]

The Old Salem Orchestra consisted of fourteen members listed below: 

Seated: H.V. Leinbach, W.P. Ormsby, George F. Markgraff, John L. Butner, William J. Peterson

Standing: Harry F. Mickey, William E. Leinbach, Sam E. Peterson, Robert L. Carmichael, Sam T. Mickey, Bernhard Wurreschke, S. Fred Pfohl, Dermot S. Butner, Bernard J. Pfohl.

Charlotte's Second Annual Festival of the North Carolina Choral Association, 1891

The great success of Charlotte’s first music festival led to the enthusiastic preparations for a second one and the intention that this would become an annual event.  In fact, despite the resounding success of the Charlotte’s Second Music Festival in 1891, annual festivals did not become a reality for the Queen City, though there were as many as twelve music festivals over the next two decades.  For the Second Annual Music Festival a special auditorium was erected which became the City Auditorium for the next few years until it burned down in 1895.  The building was finished on May 1^st, just in time for the festival, which opened on May 5^th; this tight scheduling was the cause of much speculation about where the event would be held if the City Auditorium was not ready.  The building was large and utilitarian with a stage that could hold three hundred people and capacity for an audience of 5,000.

As with the first music festival, special trains were laid on to bring performers and audience members from around the state.  The three hundred strong chorus constituted members from Salem, Lincolnton, Greensboro, Salisbury, Fayetteville and of course the local area.

On the first day of the festival an editorial in the Chronicle drew a parallel between Charlotte’s material growth and her artistic and cultural development:

There is no gain-saying in Charlotte’s material progress.  There is evidence of it everywhere, but a stranger in the city might ask, what are your evidences of culture and social progress.  The music festival shows this side, the spiritual and better side of progress.  While the city is straining itself to multiply houses and shops and mills, it has disposition to surrender itself at the feet of artists and pay homage to the beautiful , the true and the good.

So above its material growth is the growth of its soul, which growth blossoms now in the musical festival, at a time when nature expresses itself in flowers.[1]

The Old North State 

This patriotic song was written by Judge William Gaston in the early ninteenth century and set to a tune heard in Raleigh at a public concert given by a travelling company of Swiss bell ringers and musicians.  Mrs. Mary J. Lucas of Charlotte wrote out the music for the song.  

It became popular after a chorus of ladies performed it while playing their guitars at a great "log cabin" meeting during a political campaign in Raleigh in 1840.

The Old North State song was adopted as the official song of the State of North Carolina by General Assembly in 1927.

The Entente Allies' Patriotic Music Festival was hailed as a great success, with an attendance of 12-13 thousand attendees from the United Kingdom, France, Italy, North Carolina and neighboring states.  On the first evening 4-5 thousand crowded into the Charlotte Auditorium to listen to the military band conducted by Hasselmans and the school boy choir singing “La Marseillaise”.

The Entente Allies' Patriotic Music Festival, April 27th, 1918

During the First World War community musical activities in Charlotte were heavily influenced by the army training camp on Charlotte’s west side known as Camp Greene.  Many of Charlotte’s church choirs performed for the entertainment of the troops and in return regimental bands gave concerts for the appreciation of Charlotteans.   It was natural therefore that a music festival was planned to honor Charlotte’s military guests.  An organizing body formed called the Grand Opera Music Festival Association who invited an international cast of performers.  These included French tenor Lucien Muratore, Francis Alda, a soprano from New Zealand, the Russian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Modest Altshuler, and French conductor Louis Hasselmans.  Guests of honor at the Festival were the French high commissioner the Marquis de Polignac and his wife.  The Marquis bid Hasselmans, the foremost French conductor of his day, to assemble a concert band from the musicians at Camp Greene as well as a chorus of schoolboys from Charlotte who were to sing  “La Marseillaise” at the Festival.