Music of Maryland

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Music of the United States
Institutions
Organizations
Venues
Festivals
State song"Maryland, My Maryland"
Topics

pop punk band Good Charlotte
, and include a wide array of popular styles.

Modern Maryland is home to many well-regarded music venues, including the

1st Mariner Arena host most of the largest concerts in the area. Since HFStival ended its successful run in 2006, Virgin Festival
has taken over as one of the most popular summer festivals on the east coast since its inaugural year in 2006.

Institutions

Most of the major musical organizations in Baltimore were founded by musicians who trained at the

Baltimore Opera, as well as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO).[2] The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra formed in 1916 and was the only orchestra in the country to operate as a branch of the city's government.[3] In 1942, the orchestra was reorganized as a private institution. The Orchestra claims that Joseph Meyerhoff, President of the Orchestra beginning in 1965, and his music director, Sergiu Comissiona, began the modern history of the BSO and "ensured the creation of an institution, which has become the undisputed leader of the arts community throughout the State of Maryland".[3]

Aside from the prominent Baltimore Symphony, Maryland is also home to several other institutions. The

Maryland Center for the Arts.[6]

Venues and festivals

The Rohrersville Cornet Band is the oldest community band in continuous service in the state
See also: Category:Music venues in Maryland

The largest music venue in Maryland is the

Takoma Park Folk Festival is also well known among folk music aficionados, and has been held annually since 1978 in Takoma Park, Maryland.[9]

Baltimore is home to several important concert spaces, including the

Lyric Opera House. The Meyerhoff is home to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Concordia Hall is a long-standing venue, founded in 1867 by German musical societies, which were then a large portion of Baltimore's population.[10] The Lyric Opera House, founded in 1894, is another important Baltimore music venue; it has hosted many of the most famous performers and public speakers to come to Baltimore.[11] Smaller Hardcore and Punk acts play at the Charm City Art Space
.

The city of Frederick is home to the

Weinberg Centre for the Arts, which shows various kinds of theatrical and musical productions. The Weinberg was originally a large movie theater called the Tivoli, opened in 1926; the Tivoli was destroyed in a flood in 1976, and was reopened as the Weinberg Center two years later.[12] North Bethesda's Strathmore opened in 1976, and is now a home for numerous programs, including the largest of its music venues, the Music Center at Strathmore; the Strathmore has hosted well-known musicians and composers like the cellist Steven Honigberg, pianist Christopher Taylor, jazz singers Nnenna Freelon and Luciana Souza and composers Virgil Thomson and Gunther Schuller, as well as DC-area cult acts like the founder of Go-go, Chuck Brown, and the reunited punk band The Slickee Boys.[13]

History

See also: Indigenous music of North America § Eastern Woodlands

emo and hardcore punk
.

Colonial era

A few instruments, such as drums and trumpets, are known to have existed in the early history of the Maryland colony, probably as a functional means "of calling the populace to church or to market, or in serving as symbols for sea captains and those from the military"; some folk dancing and ballad singing is also substantiated by the historical record. The early colonists had little tradition of any performance art, due to the small number of individuals, their low standard of living and great poverty and disease.[14]

With the arrival of large numbers of

hammered dulcimers and harpsichords.[15]

Local music groups during the colonial era did much to sponsor musical development. Annapolis, a major center for colonial music in

fife and drum ensembles.[10]

Early independence and 19th century

Professional theater in Maryland died out during the

shape-note method.[10]

By the turn of the century, the middle classes of Maryland were holding regular dances featuring the

St. Patrick's Day parades and Jewish chants flourished among their respective communities. Maryland was home to several folk traditions, including the work songs of rail and canal diggers and the crab- and oystermen of the Chesapeake Bay, whose repertoire varied from hymns to risqué songs and Bahaman shanties.[10]

By the middle of the 19th century, Baltimore was a major center of sheet music publishing, home to

William Knabe and Charles Stieff. This period also saw the rise of blackface minstrel shows, featuring the pseudo-African American songs of composers like Dan Emmett and Stephen Foster.[10]

During the Civil War, Maryland was a

state song. The Civil War left several lasting effects on American music nationwide, most importantly the normalization of white and black cultural mixing, especially in music, caused by the mixing of soldiers in multiracial units; military brass bands became a popular part of the music scene during and after the war, one of the first being the Moxley Band from Frederick.[10]

The middle of the 19th century saw a wave of immigration from Europe into the United States, including a large number of German musicians who settled in Baltimore; the presence of these musicians, as well as the general growth in urban population with the

industrial revolution and the continued rise of the music publishing industry, helped make music training more affordable for more Americans.[10]

Peabody Institute in Baltimore in about 1902

Baltimore Choral Arts and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Though founded in 1857, the Peabody Institute did not hold an orchestral concert until after the Civil War, when James Monroe Deems directed a concert; Deems was a musician and composer, known for Nebuchadnezzar, one of the first American oratorios. He was succeeded by Lucien Southard, who failed to organize the institute (then known as the Academy of Music), blaming the lack of a "proper musical atmosphere" in Baltimore. It was not until Asger Hamerik's reign that the Peabody Symphony Orchestra finally became successful, one of only five professional orchestras in the country at the time. Hamerik was an advocate of American music and regularly included the works of American composers, eschewing the more typical European programs.[10]

The Peabody during Hamerik's leadership produced such noted individuals as

Adam Itzel, Jr. was a very popular composer, known for the national hit light opera The Tar and the Tartar.[10]

Early 20th century

There were a number of mostly informal musical societies in Maryland by the end of the 19th century, including the Saturday Night Club of

Baltimore Opera in 1927.[10]

While the largely white middle- and upper-class Baltimoreans supported the orchestras and other societies, the city's African Americans formed their own Coloured Symphony Orchestra in 1931, which was municipally supported just like the BSO; the first performance included Ellis Larkins and Anne Brown, the latter known for creating the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess. At the time, Pennsylvania Avenue (often known simply as The Avenue) was the major scene for Baltimore's black musicians, and was an early home for Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, among others.[10]

Early 21st century

Many new, independent performing arts organizations formed in the early 21st century, including the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, Symphony Number One, Lunar Ensemble, and SONAR New Music Ensemble. Many of these groups were founded by students and alumni of the Peabody Institute.[16]

Folk music

Maryland's folk music heritage remains little studied. There have been no major musicological studies in Maryland, though some

Native American music.[17] Maryland's folk heritage also includes the traditional music of the German communities of central and western Maryland. Cornet bands, such as the Rohrersville Cornet Band
, are also a prominent part of Maryland's folk heritage.

The oystermen and others who work on the Chesapeake Bay have their own distinct folk song styles which include

Warner Williams and Jay Summerour. Bill Jackson, born 1906, from Granite, Maryland was an obscure Piedmont blues guitarist and singer. He was discovered by Pete Welding and recorded his first and only record in 1962. The Piedmont blues arose from a mixture of black gospel music with white string ensembles, and is characterized by a style of guitar playing influenced by ragtime and country music.[18]

Popular music

Fells Point
, Baltimore.

Maryland has produced popular musicians from many fields, including

hip hop history. Rapper Logic has had two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 including Everybody
in 2017.

Maryland has also produced many renowned

TK Blue. Internationally acclaimed jazz ensemble Fertile Ground are also based in Baltimore.[citation needed
]

O.A.R. are other popular American rock bands with strong ties to Maryland.[citation needed
]

Mama

international championships in 1961 and 1971.[20]

Baltimore's

Fascist Fascist, who became regionally prominent. The Urbanite magazine has identified several major trends in local Baltimorean music, including the rise of psychedelic-folk singer-songwriters like Entrance and the house/hip hop dance fusion called Baltimore club, pioneered by DJs like Rod Lee. More recently, Baltimore's indie rock scene has produced performers like Cass McCombs and Mary Prankster.[1]

Maryland has had a thriving doom metal scene since the early 1990s, and is now considered to have its own "Maryland doom" sound.[22] This scene was started in the late 1970s with The Obsessed, a band led by Scott "Wino" Weinrich. During this time, Northern Virginia's Pentagram also had a heavy influence on the Maryland scene. After disbanding The Obsessed in the mid 80s and moving to California to sing with doom legends Saint Vitus, Wino reformed The Obsessed and signed to the German-based Hellhound Records. With The Obsessed on board, Hellhound began to sign other Maryland bands, such as Wretched, Iron Man, Unorthodox, Internal Void, and Revelation (who already had an album on Rise Above Records). After Hellhound's demise in the late 90s, many Maryland doom bands were picked up by various other labels, including Southern Lord Records. After The Obsessed second break up, Wino formed Spirit Caravan and The Hidden Hand. Other current[when?] Maryland doom bands include Earthride.[citation needed]

1980s metal band Kix are from Hagerstown. Death metal band Dying Fetus are from Upper Marlboro. Speed-thrash metal band Offensive are from Essex in Baltimore County.[citation needed] Progressive metal band Periphery are from Bethesda.[23]

Maryland has a thriving experimental music scene, based around Baltimore. The local scene is led by artists and groups such as Dan Deacon, Double Dagger and North Carolina imports Future Islands. Famed group Animal Collective had their beginnings in the suburbs surrounding Baltimore, and named their breakout 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavilion after the famed Pavilion in Columbia.

See also

References and notes

  1. ^ a b "Soundtrack to the City". The Urbanite. Archived from the original on December 31, 2005. Retrieved November 3, 2005.
  2. ^ "Music and Theater". Maryland History and Culture. Archived from the original on May 7, 2005. Retrieved September 12, 2005. The founding of the Peabody in 1857 would dramatically change the musical life of Maryland. Nearly all of Baltimore's major musical organizations – the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Opera, Baltimore Choral Arts, and a host of smaller organizations – owe their existence to Peabody musicians.
  3. ^ a b "Baltimore Symphony Orchestra History". Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved January 14, 2010. Meyerhoff appointed Romanian-born conductor Sergiu Comissiona as music director; together, the visionary philanthropist and the charismatic conductor ensured the creation of an artistic institution, which has become the undisputed leader of the arts community throughout the State of Maryland.
  4. ^ "History". Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. Archived from the original on February 3, 2006. Retrieved September 18, 2005.
  5. ^ "Rohrersville Cornet Band". Rohrersville Band History. Retrieved November 10, 2005.
  6. ^ "History of Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras". Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra. Retrieved August 26, 2005.
  7. ^ "Welcome to Merriweather Post Pavilion". Merriweather Post Pavilion. Archived from the original on August 27, 2005. Retrieved September 12, 2005.
  8. ^ "HFStival". HFStival. Retrieved September 12, 2005.
  9. ^ "Takoma Park Folk Festival: Homegrown and Proud of It". Takoma Park Folk Festival. Archived from the original on September 14, 2005. Retrieved September 21, 2005.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Music and Theater". Maryland History and Culture. Archived from the original on May 7, 2005. Retrieved September 12, 2005.David K. Hildebrand and Elizabeth Schaaf date the first theatrical seasons in Maryland as 1752, 1760, and more regularly from 1769 to 1773
  11. ^ "History". Lyric Opera House. Archived from the original on September 12, 2005. Retrieved September 24, 2005.
  12. ^ "The History of the Weinberg". Weinberg Center for the Arts. Archived from the original on December 10, 2005. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
  13. ^ "About Strathmore: History". Strathmore. Retrieved September 12, 2005.
  14. ^ "Music and Theater". Maryland History and Culture. Archived from the original on May 7, 2005. Retrieved September 12, 2005. The few drums, trumpets, and other musical instruments recorded in seventeenth-century Maryland most likely played a functional role in calling the populace to church or to market, or in serving as symbols for sea captains and those from the military. A few references to ballad-singing and informal dancing pre-date 1700; there is no evidence of theatrical activities at this time.
  15. ^ a b "Study Guide for the "Music of Colonial Maryland" Program". Colonial Music Institute. Retrieved August 26, 2005.
  16. ^ Buker, Samantha. "Fertile Ground". Peabody Magazine Vol. 10, No. 2. Retrieved 2016-11-15 – via issuu.
  17. ^ "Maryland Field Recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture". American Heritage Center. Retrieved November 3, 2005.
  18. ^ "Thin Blue Line". Baltimore City Paper. Retrieved September 21, 2005.
  19. ISBN 0-205-13703-2
    .
  20. ^ "Champions of the Past". Barbershop Harmony Society. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  21. ISBN 0-922915-71-7
    .
  22. ^ "Review: V/A – Doom Capital Maryland / DC". July 23, 2004. Archived from the original on November 10, 2006.
  23. ^ "Periphery's Concert & Tour History | Concert Archives". www.concertarchives.org. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
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