Obituary — Frederick Fennell
Dr. Frederick Fennell, one of the world’s most active and innovative conductors, died following a heart attack at the age of 90 at his home in Siesta Key, Florida on 7 December 2004. He was one of WASBE’s founding members and an Honorary Life Member. His most inspiring keynote address at the 1999 WASBE Conference in San Luis Obispo will long be remembered by those who were present.
Fennell was born in Cleveland, Ohio on 2 July 1914 and began his illustrious musical life as a drummer with the family fife and drum corps at the age of seven. At the age of seventeen, he began his training as a conductor at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, where he was a scholarship percussion student each summer from 1931 to 1933. He was later a scholarship student at the Eastman School of Music, from which he received a Bachelor of Music degree in 1937 and a Master of Music degree in 1939. As a student, he was awarded the International Fellowship in Conducting by the Institute of International Education, which afforded him study at the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1938. He studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in 1942 and was appointed Koussevitzky’s assistant at the Center in 1948.
The Maestro became a member of the Eastman School of Music conducting faculty in 1939 as conductor of the school’s Symphony Orchestra, Little Symphony, and Symphony Band, which he had founded as a student in 1935. After a leave of absence to become National U.S.O. Music Advisor during World War II, he returned to Rochester in 1945 as Associate Conductor of Eastman Orchestras, serving as conductor of the Eastman Chamber Orchestra and the Eastman Opera Theater for ten years.
In 1952, Dr. Fennell founded the world famous Eastman Wind Ensemble, an innovation that was to change the wind band world. With that group, he recorded twenty-two albums of music for the classical division of Mercury Records, which also produced a series with the Maestro as conductor of the Eastman-Rochester Pops Orchestra, the London Pops Orchestra and the Fennell Symphonic Winds. Over the years, the Maestro would become one of the most recorded American conductors of all time, often at the forefront of new recording methods. In 1978, he conducted the Cleveland Symphonic Winds for Telarc Records in the first symphonic digital recording in the United States. He also pioneered high definition compatible digital (HDCD) recordings with the Dallas Wind Symphony.
Dr. Fennell was Associate Music Director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1962 to 1964. In September 1965, he became Conductor in Residence at the University of Miami, where conducted the Symphony Orchestra and the Symphonic Wind Ensemble until his appointment as Conductor Emeritus in 1980.
In 1984, he became conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, which he maintained was the crowning achievement of his long career. He produced twenty-eight CDs with this world class wind orchestra, which under his direction received the first Japan Symphonic Musical Academy Award in 1991. Two of the Maestros greatest honors came in 1992, with the dedication and naming of Frederick Fennell Hall in Kofu, Japan and his appointment as Laureate Conductor the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra.
Throughout his career, the Maestro always maintained a full guest conducting calendar. For many years he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Dallas Wind Symphony and the Interlochen Arts Academy. Among the many orchestras that he guest conducted were the Boston Pops, the London Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Miami Philharmonic, the New Orleans Philharmonic, and the Cleveland Orchestra. In addition to these fine ensembles, he never stopped enjoying guest conducting school bands and orchestras, whose musicians he always treated with the same respect as the finest professionals.
Among the numerous awards and honors that he received during his long life were an Honorary Doctor of Music Degrees from Oklahoma City University in 1958 and one from Eastman in 1988. He was elected to the American Bandmasters Association in 1955. In 1969, he received the Columbia University Ditson Conductors Award, and in 1970, he was awarded The New England Conservatory’s Symphonic Wind Ensemble Citation. In the same year, he received the Mercurry Record Corporation Gold Record. In 1975, he received the National Academy of Wind and Percussion Arts Oscar for outstanding service as a conductor, and in 1985 he was presented the Star of the Order from the John Philip Sousa Memorial Foundation. In 1989, he was awarded the Interlochen Medal of Honor and the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Medal of Honor. In 1994, he became the third conductor to receive the Theodore Thomas Award from the Conductors Guild; the first two recipients were Leonard Bernstein and George Solti. In 2002, he was inducted into the American Classic Music Hall of Fame.
I first became associated with Dr. Fennell while doing graduate work at the University of Miami during his tenure there. Although I was studying for degrees in Music Education, I had the great privilege of taking conducting lessons with him every Wednesday morning for three years. As for so many musicians thoughout his life, he was to became a mentor and friend. Many remember Fred Fennell’s conducting classes and workshops for the calisthenics and sessions in the swimming pool. Yes, I did them all, but most importantly the Maestro Fennell shared with me during those Wednesday morning sessions his great knowledge and understanding of the music that belonged to his vast repertoire. Although we all mourn the loss of the great showman with his engaging personality and ever energetic conducting, it is the loss of this remarkable musicianship that has changed our musical landscape.
©2005 WASBE