SYMPHONY CONCERTS IN THE MUSICAL LIFE OF LITHUANIANS IN THE USA Interaction of National Spirit and American Tradition DANUTĖ PETRAUSKAITĖ Klaipėda University Introduction Emigration of Lithuanians from their native country to America, having started in the seventeenth century, acquired a large scale over a period of several centuries. On the eve of World War One, the number of Lithuanians in the United States had reached half a million and often exceeded the number of immigrants of larger nationalities (Michelsonas, 14). Even if Lithuanian immigrants were enterprising and full of energy, their musical activities did not flourish at once. Few had received any formal musical education, and most were not able to read music (Petrauskaitė, 18). Some former village musicians carried their fiddles, concertinas and clarinets around with them and organized entertainments for Lithuanians or performed at wedding parties. At the beginning of the twentieth century, more musically educated Lithuanians came to the shores of America. They were mainly graduates of Juozas Naujalis's courses for organists or pupils of manor schools in Rietavas and Plungė, and they gradually formed the core of Lithuanian musical life. That life was most colorful and intensive. In accordance with the type of performance, musical activities developed in several parallel directions: 1) staged works of music, such as operas and operettas; 2) entertainments, such as vaudevilles; 3) song festivals, and 4) performances of vocal and instrumental music. Concerts of symphonic music belong to the last group. During the period of mass emigration, the number of symphonic concerts given was not very large, yet they impressed the general American community and influenced the image of Lithuanians in America. From marching bands to symphony orchestras (1895-1945) Lithuanian marching bands became generally known much earlier than church choirs or individual instrumentalists and singers. In this way, the Lithuanian community adopted the tradition of American musical life. However, Lithuanians often called those instrumental ensembles both "benas" (band) and "orchestra," because in Lithuanian the two words are synonymous. At that time, it was difficult to find a single village in the United States that could not boast of a band, a tradition which started to spread in the New World at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century (Hitchcock, 124). At the beginning, in the tradition of the British Army, marching bands spread through military divisions, police departments and fire brigades. Later they became an integral part of American musical culture at large: during the Civil War, bands boosted the patriotic spirit, participated in public festivals and ceremonies, and developed from marching ensembles to concert orchestras. The first Lithuanian band formed in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 1885. It had about thirty participants, mostly performers of wind and percussion instruments. Such bands were soon found in every larger Lithuanian community. They gave concerts at all kinds of Lithuanian meetings, at congresses of different societies, at wedding parties and funerals, at outings and street processions. Their repertory included mainly marches and dances. Lithuanian bands were also frequently invited to play at the events of other ethnic communities, because they were extremely well organized, had their own regulations, uniforms and a bandmaster (Lith. generolas) elected from among the musicians. The bandmaster usually had acąuired some performing experience in Lithuania or Russia. V. Černiauskas arrived from the Russian Army with a variety of musical instruments and founded a Lithuanian band Kareivis(The Soldier) in Manchester, New Hampshire (Andrejūnas). The violinist Jonas Juozas Jakaitis had studied music in Bohdan Oginsky's Manor School and performed in its orchestra. He had been educated in Polish and learned Lithuanian only in the USA. Kazys Bučis, a graduate of the same school, had played the trumpet in orchestras in Rietavas and the Russian Army. When he settled in Cleveland, Ohio, and became the leader of the "Lithuanian National Band", the artistic level of the players improved significantly. Other bandmasters had been born and educated in Lithuania. Among the best known are Vytautas Sarpalius, George Victor (Teresevičius) and Adomas Jezavitas. One of the first Lithuanians to write music for bands was Vincas Niekus, who started publishing Lithuanian dances in 1914, and later produced four "symphonic" compositions: Trimitas (The Trumpet), Gegužinė (A Picnic), Didžiojo Lietuvos kunigaikščio medžioklė ir sapnas (The Hunt and Dream of the Lithuanian Grand Duke), and Paukščių daina (Bird Song). Vincas Niekus called his compositions symphonic works, but he did not have much education in composition and did not fully understand the principles of the classical symphony. In any case among immigrants, his was the first attempt to compose large works for instrumental ensembles.