Mel Bay's Creative Keyboard® Webzine | Gail Smith - Celebrate American Composers Month

Celebrate American Composers Month

Since the month of August has no special holiday that we celebrate, I would like to suggest that we celebrate American Composers. Celebrations in other months include:

September - Labor Day
October - Halloween
November - Thanksgiving
December - Christmas
January - New Years' Day
February - Valentine's Day and Presidents Day
March - St. Patrick's Day
April - Easter
May - Mother's Day
June - Father's Day
July - Independence Day

Now we are back to August, why not celebrate American Composers month? Special concerts should be given all over the country celebrating American composers, past and present. America needs to celebrate the Fine Arts and especially Composers in our Country. Three famous composers who are household names include: Stephen Foster; Scott Joplin, and Leonard Bernstein. Three famous American composers who are NOT household names include: Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell and William Mason. The first list of American composers wrote popular music and the later composed classical music.

We have the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Maybe we need a special tribute of some kind to the Unknown Composer! There are endless names of American composers, both men and women who are unknown. I would like to see all of these names of published composers on a memorial in Washington D.C. Hollywood has their marble squares on the special street with movie stars names inscribed. Why are American composers forgotten?

Wouldn't you love to see a Music Museum with the life story of our American composers presented? It could be styled like the animated production at Disney World of all our Presidents. It would be fabulous to see life-like composers and hear some of their works performed in front of our eyes. Why not a musical theme park for music lovers, yes!

I guess I'm dreaming…but maybe someone reading this feels the same way I do. If so, let me know. Pianists, enjoy the rest of your Summer vacation.

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