PERCY GRAINGER'S WIND BAND SETTING OFTHE IMMOVABLE DO:

ITS HISTORY AND ANALYSIS

BY: PHILLIP ALLEN CORRELL

MAJOR PROFESSOR: WILLIAM K. WAKEFIELD, D.M.A.

Percy Grainger's role as composer, conductor, soloist, and lecturer in American high schools and universities during the middle Twentieth Century significantly influenced the development of wind band music. Grainger's The Immovable Do and his many other compositions expanded the repertoire while also raising the artistic standards in band literature.

Grainger along with Karl King were engaged as clinicians and conductors for the 1940 East Central Music Festival in Ada, Oklahoma at East Central University. The Immovable Do for wind band by Grainger, first performed at the festival, also reflects an emerging need in the 1930s for original band music of high quality that was marketable to the broad demands of educational settings.

The East Central Music Festival is representative of how Grainger's activity in American schools influenced the development of wind band music. The 1940 festival presents an invaluable juxtaposition of the two composer's unique personalities and views on wind band composition. Through unpublished letters and documents a close snapshot of Grainger's life can be documented to further advance knowledge of Grainger and bands at the end of the Great Depression and prior to World War II.