Instruments of Early Bands in America

Clinicians: Ana Silva and Dwight Vaught of the National Music Museum, Vermillion, SD

Time: 1:45 pm

Session description:

The origins of the concert band can be traced back to 18th-century Europe. The American wind ensemble tradition took a somewhat different approach from its European counterparts. All-brasswind bands predominated from the early 1830’s through the Civil War.  The Gilmore band was an exception that inspired bands throughout the country to reintroduce woodwinds.  This presentation will show some examples from the collections of the National Music Museum that are characteristic of those American traditions.

Ana Silva re-joined the National Music Museum (NMM) as associate curator in May 2018. Just before, she worked at the Royal College of Music in London, as cataloguer and photographer for the MINIM-UK project (online database project for musical instruments in museum collections in the UK). She is from Portugal, where she completed her higher education degree in conservation and restoration. She also completed a M.M. degree with specialization in the history of musical instruments at the University of South Dakota, home of the NMM, where she worked as graduate research assistant, and assistant conservator then. She also worked as conservator at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ, and worked in the repair and restoration of musical wind instruments at the workshop of D. Caeiro in Lisbon.

Dwight Vaught is a North Dakota native. He received Bachelors and Masters degrees in Music and holds a second Masters degree in Arts Administration. Dwight has been an arts administrator for almost 30 years, working with college and university fine arts and humanities programming and directing fine arts centers. He served as an adjunct instructor at three college. As a musician, he organized and was a founding member of an English style Brass Band in North Dakota and played in a Brass Band in Wisconsin while working there. He is also a church musician, directing traditional and contemporary ensembles in worship settings. He joined the NMM staff as Director in late 2021.