November 22nd-28th:The Eastman Philharmonia & Jazz Ensemble

Sixty years ago this week, on November 24^th, 1961, the members of the Eastman Philharmonia departed from Rochester to begin a landmark tour that has become legendary in the history and culture of the Eastman School of Music. The Philharmonia’s departure followed months of preparation that had begun the previous summer when the U.S. State Department had designated the Philharmonia to undertake a three-month tour under the auspices of the President’s Special International Program for Cultural Presentations. The Eastman Philharmonia would be the first student orchestra in the history of that program to perform an extended tour during the regular concert season. Another Eastman ensemble had previously received support under that same program when the Eastman String Quartet undertook a tour of cities in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa in the spring of 1960. (It should be noted that another ensemble from an American university received similar support from the U.S. State Department in the winter of 1961-62, when the University of Michigan Symphonic Band undertook a European tour that included performances in the USSR.)

This week’s entry in “This Week at Eastman” marks the launch of what will be a regular feature for the coming three months, when we will track the Eastman Philharmonia’s movements on their momentous tour. Archival documents from the Eastman School of Music Archives and from several personal collections will enable us to glimpse the orchestra members’ activities along the way. The tour, which began in Lisbon and ended in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), represented the most extensive performing engagement undertaken by any Eastman School ensemble up to that time. Between their departure from Rochester on November 24th, 1961 and their return on February 25th, 1962, the members of the Eastman Philharmonia gave 49 concerts in 34 cities in 16 countries.  The itinerary – which included points in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East – is displayed here, represented by the last copy to be printed and circulated before the time of departure. Throughout the tour, the 87 members of the Philharmonia served as de facto ambassadors, both for the U.S.A. and for music. Their responsibility was underscored by the geo-political realities of the day, when the United States and the Soviet Union stood head-to-head in an armed stand-off, when the countries of Eastern Europe lay largely inaccessible behind the Iron Curtain, and when the Berlin Wall, erected only earlier that same year, had already become a potent symbol of the Cold War.

For Howard Hanson, the tour represented a professional and personal triumph. He had founded the Eastman Philharmonia in the 1958-59 academic year primarily so as to promote the Eastman School’s most outstanding orchestral players. Just as the Eastman Wind Ensemble had done since its debut in 1953, the Eastman Philharmonia quickly scored several high-publicity successes. In 1958-59 and 1959-60, the Philharmonia performed out of town in Buffalo and in Atlantic City, and made several broadcasts by local radio and television, in addition to its regularly scheduled concerts. In April, 1961, the orchestra performed in Washington, D.C. at the Second Inter-American Festival of Music, where it was the only all-student orchestra invited to participate at that gathering among such other participating orchestras as the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.), the Orquesta Nationale of Mexico, and the CBC Orchestra (Toronto). The 1961-62 tour not be the last success that Hanson would celebrate with the Philharmonia, for in the fall of 1962 he would conduct the Philharmonia at Carnegie Hall, and in the spring of 1964 at the New York World’s Fair.  Nevertheless, the tour was a special milestone, and at the conclusion of the tour, Hanson would pose for a dedicated photograph with each and every member of the orchestra.

Preparations for so large an undertaking as this – the logistics of transporting 87 orchestral players and their instruments and personal effects overseas and through 16 countries – were a considerable challenge.  Orchestra members received an itemized “Suggested Wardrobe” list that ran to six pages in length, providing guidelines on what to wear in all circumstances of weather and terrain. Another consideration was the reality that the U.S.A. had mandatory Selective Service registration at this time, by which all men of draft age were required to register; as a result, each of the young men in the orchestra – who could potentially be called up in the event of conscription – had to apply for a waiver for the duration of the tour. Still further, because the Philharmonia would be spending a considerable proportion of the tour in Eastern Bloc countries, the orchestra members and their chaperones received copies of “Americans Abroad”, a U.S. Government publication that briefed U.S. citizens and nationals on protocols and customs in other countries, and also offered specific recommendations as to how to respond to “tough question” posed by foreign nationals. Nor were the human aspects all that were to be considered. One memorandum archived in Frederick Fennell’s office files described the last-minute need for custom trunks to be manufactured for the orchestra’s use owing to the specific size requirements imposed by cargo hold doors on European aircraft, which were smaller than those on North American aircraft.

On November 24th, the day after Thanksgiving, the orchestra members flew from Rochester to New York City in two separate DC-6 aircraft.  At New York’s Idlewild Airport they had time to rest and to receive briefings before their overseas flight.  Rather later at night than scheduled (for there turned out to be an unexpected delay), the orchestra members boarded their chartered Iberian Airlines jet for the flight to Lisbon, Portugal.  On arrival in Lisbon on November 25^th, the Philharmonia members were photographed on the tarmac as they descended the stairs from their plane with a tremendous manifest enthusiasm. (Readers, how many of you remember those days of walking across the tarmac to board a plane?  Or walking down the stairs from the door of the plane and walking across the tarmac to the terminal?)  That same day Hanson participated in a press conference before the local media. On November 26th, under the auspices of the Sociedade de Concertos Lisboa, the Eastman Philharmonia gave the first concert of the tour, with Hanson conducting. (With respect to the conductor, such was to be the norm throughout the tour. Although Frederick Fennell had been tasked with accompanying Hanson as associate conductor, Mr. Fennell was never invited to conduct a concert save one event in Russia when Hanson had taken ill.)  The following day the orchestra travelled to Madrid, where they performed the tour’s second concert on November 28th. Madrid would be the first stop in Spain, to be followed by concerts in Sevilla, Valencia, and Barcelona.