Birth of the Band
The following article by Daryl Hurst appeared in the June 2006 issue of the Ann Arbor Observer.
The old Ann Arbor High School is coming down. But while its bricks and mortar meet the wrecking ball this summer, the school's spirit lives on in the band program that was born at the corner of State and Huron. Among the stories that will last beyond the crumbled walls, perhaps the history of the band best captures the pioneer spirit of the school.
Architect's drawing of the building completed in 1907: originally Ann Arbor High School
According Verne Collins's 1965 doctoral dissertation Music in Ann Arbor High School, "the individual who was most influential in establishing and supporting music in the high school was Henry Simmons Frieze." How appropriate, then, that when the university acquired the former Ann Arbor High in 1955, it renamed it in honor Frieze, a nineteenth-century professor and acting president of the university. Largely because of Frieze's vision and efforts, one of the nation's premier high school music programs was born within those walls.
Hired in 1854 as chair of the Latin department, Frieze also had a passion for music. A former church organist, he was instrumental in the formation of both the Choral Union and the School of Music, which at first was an independent entity connected with both the university and Ann Arbor High.
Music had been part of the curriculum when Ann Arbor opened one of the nation's first high schools in 1856, but over the school's first fifty years, the battles over academics versus arts ensured that music courses never stayed in place very long. Music instruction usually took the form of singing or piano, leaving instrumental ensembles to be formed by students as extracurriculars. The first was a Banjo Club in 1892, followed by a mandolin club in 1895. What could be considered the first orchestra at Ann Arbor High also formed in 1895, but like its successors over the next several years, it was more of a dance band and usually had more winds than strings.
1903 Orchestra
Remains of original Ann Arbor High School after 1904 fire
When a spectacular New Year's Eve fire consumed the school building in 1904, classes were forced to meet in community buildings, and the formation of music ensembles stalled. But when a new and better Ann Arbor High School opened in 1907, school life resumed quickly, and student music groups re-formed.