Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The passing of Kenneth G. Bloomquist in 2021 marked the end of a significant era of instrumental band directors. Bloomquist’s generation bridged the gap between the old guard band directors from the pre-World War II era to a new generation that pursued graduate degrees in conducting performance and embraced the wind ensemble as part of the band program. He retired from Michigan State in 1993 after two stints as Director of Bands (1970-1978, 1989-92) and a long tenure as Director of the School of Music from 1978-1989.
I met Mr. Bloomquist when I was a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University in the fall of 1986. As a fellow University of Illinois graduate, he knew my parents and immediately reached out to me at Michigan State He was the faculty member I interacted with the most during my two years at MSU, and this continued well past the completion of my degree. This was especially true when he returned to the podium during my last academic year on campus.
When Bloomquist left administration and returned to serving as Director of Bands, we began to discuss my research idea about the history and concert programming of the Michigan State University Bands from Leonard Falcone’s retirement to Bloomquist’s return as Director of Bands.
One critical element of research involved interviewing each of the MSU band directors who followed Leonard Falcone – Harry Begian, Kenneth G. Bloomquist, Stanley E. DeRusha, and Eugene Migliaro Corporon. Each conductor agreed to a set of fixed questions regarding their MSU ensembles, philosophy of programming and their perspectives of the wind band as it had evolved since the time they were at Michigan State University. The following are excerpts of that interview as reported in “Programming Trends of the Michigan State University Bands, 1967 to 1988.” DMA diss. Michigan State University, 1991.
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What factors determined the instrumentation and number of players for the wind ensemble and Symphony Band during your tenure?
The wind ensemble was basically a concept of one on a part. We had a pool of players sufficient to supply the needs of the wind ensemble activities schedule for a term. The Symphony Band was conceived as a group that had more than one player on a part, and it changed through the years, but it has usually maintained 60 to 80 members.
Wind Symphony membership was based on a pool of 40 to 60 players. The number of players varied depending on the selection of literature that we played in the Wind Symphony. That changed when the literature dictated that doubling was appropriate for the composer’s wishes. With the Wind Symphony, we created various chamber groups from a quartet, to octet, to 12 to 16 players – whatever the composer dictated. The larger Symphony Band included between 60 to 80 players. the largest group that I ever had in the Symphonic Band was around 84 players.
How do you view the role of the university wind ensemble and symphonic band program in reflecting contemporary music trends?
We are cursed with not having a great deal of music from the masters. That is something the symphony orchestra enjoys, so we focus much of our attention on contemporary music. That is controlled in two ways: the ability of the player and the advances in technology of the equipment today. University wind programs are at the cutting edge of new music in the 20th to 21st centuries.
How did you select music for the wind ensemble?
I have a wealth of material that I want to do. My experience tells me what needs to be covered, and I take a pragmatic approach to music selection. approach. I consider the strengths of the players and the need for literature that is stylistically varied. Its easy to stick to wind literature written in the 20th Century. That is where the most exciting literature is except for Mozart, Dvo˘rák, Strauss, and a few others. I think of programming relative to individual pieces, but I also think of programming relative to the total program.
What is your opinion of various commissioning projects by various universities, CBDNA, American Wind Symphony Orchestra, and their influence on wind ensemble development?
I am extremely supportive of any commissioning project that generates repertoire for the winds. There is nothing more important than generating literature to perform. Repertoire is our heartbeat, and we are not going to survive without it. My biggest disappointment with commissioning projects is that we have not gone to the current so-called masters in commissioning, probably due to a lack of money and shying away from the Samuel Barbers, the Aaron Coplands, the Stravinskys, Bernstein, Gunther Schuller – the names we think have a chance of becoming monumental composers in the Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Berlioz, and Schubert tradition.
I have been involved in several commissioning projects. Some I wish I hadn’t been involved in and some I’m glad I was. I am not convinced that the commissioning I have done has been monumental enough to be remembered as a major stroke.
I have only been involved in the Big Ten commissioning projects recently. We have generated works from very good composers including Warren Benson, Michael Colgrass, and H. Owen Reed, who was a professor at Michigan State University and the chair of the composition area. H. Owen Reed wrote many works for winds, and I commissioned one of these works, The Touch of the Earth. I consider H. Owen Reed one of the more interesting composers as he wrote works for winds that encompass an incredible change in his philosophy towards composition.
Some current literature is generated by those who are out to make a living at composing. Some of them are gifted writers.…They understand the wind medium, and write the level of music that serves the educational process very well. Whether their music survives and becomes standard repertoire like the Symphony in B-Flat for Concert Band by Paul Hindemith, Symphony No. 6 for Band by Vincent Persichetti and certainly some of the Percy Grainger repertoire is questionable in my mind. It disturbs me that some people like Samuel Barber wrote one piece for band, Commando March, and all the efforts by so many people, could not make him write any more. That’s sad!
What other thoughts do you have about the wind ensemble?
I’m very concerned about the wind ensemble and the broader perspective of live concerts in the concert hall for any medium. Any ensemble performing for public consumption needs a public. We have to be incredibly careful to program concerts that appeal to an audience that are not too long, too short, too dissonant, or too much of one style. We have to listen to appealing concerts by major symphonies and see what makes the audience react. That is what we have to do in the wind symphony.
Secondly, we spend way too much rearranging the stage during concerts, and the audience gets bored. When you take five to ten minutes between each number to reset the stage, repopulate the stage, retune the ensemble, and make a grand entrance by the conductor, that’s a good intermission time between each number. Consequently, I had to decide whether I was going to do chamber music on band concerts at all. The answer in most cases was no.
As far as literature, I feel strongly that contemporary repertoire has to be part of almost every program that I do. I brought Karel Husa to Michigan State as a guest conductor because I think his literature is something that will last and become standard repertoire. I wanted students to get a perspective of how he conceives his music and how he wants it to be played. Twenty years from now, that experience will be more important than they think right now. They will also have a concept of that piece (Apotheosis of This Earth) tonally, melodically, and texturally that they could not have without him there. It wasn’t the execution. They executed the piece fine before he [Husa] got there.
Emotionally (aesthetically), they probably had no idea of what he was trying to say. Husa said things differently than I’ve ever heard him say about the piece. I’m a strong believer in bringing composers to the podium. I don’t really care if they conduct or not. William Schuman was on campus and never conducted a note.
Persichetti came here several times and was one of my favorite composers. He conducted sometimes, and didn’t sometimes, and most of the time he probably shouldn’t have. He was a genius. I loved that man dearly for what he was, and what he offered our profession. I always think of him as a major composer, that I have experienced, getting to know him personally and his writing for winds.
I asked him how he wrote his first piece for winds, Divertimento for Band. He gave me the perfect answer. He said, “when I was writing the piece, I wrote what I heard. I never heard strings so I didn’t write any.” That was his first famous band piece. That’s a wonderful way to generate a band piece.
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Kenneth G. Bloomquist retired from Michigan State University in 1993 and began a second career as a guest conductor, clinician and lecturer. He was guest conductor for multiple years at the Musashino Music Academy in Tokyo, the most prestigious music school in Japan. Among his numerous awards, he received the Midwest Clinic Medal of honor and was inducted into several halls of fame, including the National Band Association, which he served a term as president. Bloomquist became a member of the American Bandmasters Association in 1973.
