Harding, A (lbert) A (ustin)
Harding, A (lbert) A (ustin)
Harding, A(lbert) A(ustin), American bandmaster; b. Georgetown, 111., Feb. 10, 1880; d. Champaign, 111., Dec. 3, 1958. At 14 he began to play cornet, then trombone and other wind instruments. After graduation from high school in Paris, 111., he conducted the local concert band. In 1902 he enrolled as an engineering student at the Univ. of 111. (B.A., 1906). At the same time, he developed many campus music contacts, and in 1905 was made acting leader of the Univ. Band; in 1907 he was appointed director, a post he held until 1948. Harding was the first to succeed in raising college bands to a “symphonic” level in which oboes, saxophones, and other reed instruments supplied variety to the common brass-heavy contingent; thanks to this sonic enhancement, he was able to arrange orch. works of the general repertoire and perform them in a satisfactory musical manner; he was credited with 147 such transcriptions. John Philip Sousa, who greatly admired Harding, bequeathed to him and his band his own entire music library. Harding was a charter founder of the American Bandmasters’ Assn. in 1929 and was its president in 1937-38; was honorary life president from 1956 until his death. He also was active in founding the Coll. Band Directors’ Assn., of which he was honorary life president from its founding in 1941.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire