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| Edson today (KMRS-KKOK image) |
It doesn't seem UMM is much disposed to doing encores today. Today, one notices that the estimated length of the concert, e.g. 50 minutes, is announced in advance. Not sure why that's necessary except maybe to impress on people to plan on whether they should fully empty their bladder first. Kinda kidding on that.
A recorded voice advises us on how to make a quick escape in case of disaster. I have seen concert programs with a notice on how we ought to suppress coughing, and I think that's rather limiting for some people. All of this is in the proper spirit of course, and in line with today's highly regulated society with the endless i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed.
Edson Hall was a real focus for campus activity in the days before the HFA. I used to type the name of the latter as "HFAC" to denote "Humanities Fine Arts Center." Then in the course of my newspaper work, someone was incredulous about that and asserted, as if it were obvious, that it should be just "HFA." Eventually I found old memorabilia from when the building was inaugurated. The literature had "HFAC." So perhaps I'm not such an idiot.
The Edson Hall salad days coincided with the old "P.E. Annex" being a hub also, including for basketball games in the days before the P.E. Center. The Annex building was considered a big deal when it was first built for the antecedent WCSA. But as we got into the 1960s, time had to take a toll on the building's image, indeed. I am reminded of the old Annex when I see the basketball scenes in the Fred MacMurray "Flubber" movies.
The games at our Annex were memorable, and the times overall were memorable. UMM had to fight early-on for its very existence. I think the institution was blessed having someone with my father's credentials come here for the launch. I don't think that's bragging, I think it's true. He already had a terrific resume before coming here. Having now had time to go through scrapbook material and memorabilia, I am even more impressed.
Any successful composer can taste immortality in a way because the music goes on being performed. I was excited in the early years of the Internet to discover various compositions of my father being performed at churches around the U.S. Battle Creek MI. Allentown PA. A church showcased a tune for Easter Sunday.
I don't wish to emphasize too much the men's chorus chapter of UMM history. Granted it's significant in terms of the attention gained for UMM. And granted the group was thrilling to hear, a given. Their renditions were powerful at Edson Auditorium, over and over. Ah, "John Henry."
But given all that, we must acknowledge that from today's perspective, a men-only ensemble has question marks for propriety. My father who grew up in the hardscrabble 1930s would probably need to be schooled on rising standards of "political correctness."
Trotting out the men's chorus in our retrospective here might cause one to overlook the other significant vocal groups. At the outset, my father organized the University choir, band, orchestra, men's chorus and chamber singers. Quite the full plate and one in which the men's ensemble was just part of the mix. It was a high-profile part as demonstrated when it opened the Minnesota Day program at the 1962 New York World's Fair. The recruiting value of this was not just for the overall fair crowd which was from all over. The recruiting value from that standpoint alone would be limited. UMM was joined that day by other musical groups from around Minnesota. Musicians became most aware of UMM and what our music offered.
I'm sure the University choir was the equivalent of today's UMM concert choir. Sometimes we see promos of UMM music wherein we can easily get the impression that UMM vocal music - heck, maybe the whole music department - began in 1979. Well, 1979 was quite far down the road from where UMM started. And, from where UMM music started.
Everything evolves. My very use of the "UMM" initials might show I'm (again?) missing the boat. It seems that "UMN Morris" has taken over. I hope "UMM" will always pass muster.
My father first visited the local campus way back in 1928. Babe Ruth was in his prime. Wouldn't it be the next year when the great stock market crash happened? So in 1928, when my father performed in the district music contest at the auditorium later to be named Edson, the "roaring '20s" were on. He was a young man from Glenwood, son of Martin and Carrie Williams who I never met. Martin died young of cancer in 1933. Carrie passed on in 1949.
My father returned to our campus in 1931 to play a trumpet solo with the West Central Minnesota Symphonic Orchestra. This performance was at the then-new gymnasium which later got the "Annex" name. He was quoted saying that by the standards of 1931, the Annex building was considered quite top-notch. I remember that in my days with the newspaper, I covered the opening of a time capsule from the place. Today the grand science buildings occupy the spot, dwarfing what was once there.
My father got his baccalaureate and master's degrees in education from the University of Minnesota. His undergraduate degree was in 1939. He had a most interesting story to tell from the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard. This is a reason I once wrote a song about the famous blizzard. Betty Waage had a story about the blizzard in Morris, published in a book.
The years 1941 and '42 saw my father teach at Washington High School in Brainerd MN. Should I assume it was one academic year? When interviewed for the job, the school board asked him if he was prepared for a long-term commitment. My father, thinking on his feet, pulled out a pair of rolled-up socks from his pocket, held them up and said "I'm prepared to stay!" And he actually might have stayed longer but there was a complication: World War II. He joined the Navy as gunnery officer.
We won the war and then Dad got back to music, teaching at the U of M St. Paul School of Agriculture. Such schools were heading into the home stretch of their existence. The need was diminishing as we saw here in Morris with the phasing out of our WCSA. I personally have memories of the St. Paul days as I was in pre-school.
We came to Morris thanks to WCSA Dean Rodney Briggs, and I started kindergarten.
A lament, surely
I probably didn't attend any of my father's concerts after about the fifth grade. Probably that's because I had self-esteem issues that made me feel embarrassed and awkward to be at any public place. Being at UMM would put me around people so brilliant, people so much more brilliant than me. Maybe I could blame school where I was put on the defensive and scared constantly, scared of failure and humiliation.
I had social anxiety disorder to the point where I had a hard time acquiring clothes. I wore hand-me-downs and clothes that were one or two sizes too small. I don't think alternative schools existed then. Maybe I should have gone to some sort of reform school and most certainly, be put on behavior medications, full dose or even more than full dose.
Yes I sound here like the Robert Stack character at the end of "Airplane": "I was never happy as a child, Striker."
Oh to go back in time and put aside so many of the anxieties. To not care if a teacher yelled at me or kicked me out of class for some reason. What's the worst that could happen? They couldn't execute me, could they? I should have been happy being an extension of my parents' careers and identities, to help them in any manner possible and to exude pride as a Williams. School in the industrial age beat kids down, sucked pride out of them. A real shame.
We the Williamses were "in the arena." That position can bring incredible ups and downs for anyone. We wouldn't want it any other way, would we? So when UMM implies that its vocal music program didn't begin until 1979, as it has clearly done, even fooling Garrison Keillor who is not stupid I assure you, it's sort of a "down" for my father and his memory.
We all have to take some bad with the good, n'est-ce pas? Oh to have all of life be composed of "ups." The stuff of our dreams only. I sit here alone in our family's house, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, being reminded of times past both in connection to UMM and personally. And on the whole it's most gratifying. So feel the peace on Earth.
Addendum: My father had to feel like he was "living a dream" as virtually the only music faculty in UMM's first year. OK, "UMN Morris." He had already been through such exciting chapters of his music life, among them directing the heralded Minneapolis Apollo Club male chorus. (There's that gender exclusivity again. Sigh.) I have found some old concert programs in our house from UMM's first year. Such a comprehensive music program, such exciting concerts! And Dad ran the whole show! Eventually of course UMM spread its wings and the landscape changed, getting only better. We saw the jazz program develop under Jim Carlson. There was jazz before and after that, but no one would dispute Carlson's distinctive stamp. He sang in my father's men's chorus for the Seattle trip.
Addendum No. 2: I did not have the opportunity to try to out-bid Helen Jane Morrison on the Edson Auditorium improvement project. That would have been an interesting proposition. Helen Jane has aged so gracefully. She and her late husband Ed were ground floor people with UMM too. They were newspaper mavens.
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| (image from "behance") |
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