A “how to” clinic in successful march rehearsal and performance techniques by conductor and Library of Congress Senior Music Musicologist Loras John Schissel. No “Pie in the Sky stuff” here. A practical clinic geared towards bands performing easy, medium and difficult marches. Come ready with questions. This clinic is based on over 150 years of march performance traditions, good research, and practical solutions to having your band play a march that inspires.
Loras Schissel
- Biographical Information
John Schissel has served as conductor of the Blossom Festival Band since 1998. He also regularly conducts the Blossom Festival Orchestra. He led The Cleveland Orchestra's free concert on Public Square in 2009 and led the special 9/11 tenth anniversary concert in September 2011. He has regularly conducted special concerts with the orchestra through 2017.
Mr. Schissel has travelled throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia conducting orchestras, bands, and choral ensembles in a broad range of musical styles and varied programs. A native of New Hampton, Iowa, Loras John Schissel studied brass instruments and conducting with Carlton Stewart, Frederick Fennell, and John Paynter. In the years following his studies at the University of Northern Iowa, Mr. Schissel has distinguished himself as a prominent conductor, orchestrator and musicologist. He has just completed his 20th season as founding music director of the Arlington-based Virginia Grand Military Band, and ensemble comprised of current and former members of the four major U.S. service bands. In 2005, Mr Schissel was elected to membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association.
As a composer and orchestrator, Mr. Schissel has created an extensive catalogue of over 500 works for orchestra, symphonic wind band and jazz ensemble, published exclusively by Ludwig/Masters Music. His musical score for Bill Moyers: America's First River, The Hudson, which first appeared on PBS in April 2002, received extensive coverage and critical acclaim. He also created musical scores for two films for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home in Hyde Park, New York. As a recording artist, Mr. Schissel has amassed a large discography with a wide variety of ensembles and various musical genres.
Loras John Schissel is a senior musicologist at the Library of Congress and a leading authority on the music of Percy Aldridge Grainger, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky. Schissel and John Philip Sousa IV (great-grandson of the composer) recently co-authored a book titled The Stars and Stripes Forever in conjunction with the Sousa-Schissel book. Mr. Schissel is currently writing a study of the famed impresario Sergei Diaghilev.
Deeply committed to young musicians, Loras John Schissel has appeared as conductor of All-State music festivals and of festival bands and orchestras in more than thirty states. In July 2008, Mr. Schissel made his debut with "Pershing's Own," the United States Army Band, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Schissel was invited to program, produce and conduct the Dallas Symphony for the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s passing on November 22nd, 1963. 2014 marked Schissel’s return at the head of the Cleveland Orchestra for its downtown July 4 celebration. The United States Army Band and Loras John Schissel produced an online masterclass regarding performing the music of John Philip Sousa which was seen in over 30 countries in Asia, Europe, and South America. Mr. Schissel will lead a special concert with the Cleveland Orchestra in July celebrating the renovation of the Terminal Tower Plaza.