Categories
folk music music student life

The Crescendoes: UNC Greensboro’s Lost Folk Music Group

UNC Greensboro student music ensembles historically have been classically-based. Although Woman’s College can be proud of its very own all-female 1940s “big band,” the Darlinettes and Rhythmettes, it was not until much later in the school’s history that the music curriculum experimented with popular music. Consequently, what some might consider the state soundtrack of North […]

Categories
African Americans Buddy Gist music Steve Haines

Buddy Gist, the Man Behind the Miles Davis Trumpet

The Miles Davis Trumpet is listed on the UNCG Bucket List Passing through the atrium of the Music Building, it is easy to overlook the modest exhibit featuring a trumpet. It is in a small case, dwarfed by its surroundings. Even upon reading the plaque, it is difficult to believe that the trumpet belonging to […]

Categories
bars Business College Hill music stores student life Tate Street

Tate Street: Evolving to serve a changing community

Tate Street, UNCG’s original “campus strip” was originally two streets: Tate Street north of Walker Avenue and Lithia Street to the south. By 1923, when most of the area’s commercial development was beginning, both sections shared the same name. The shopping area was targeted at a pedestrian population and included chain grocery stores such as […]

Categories
High School Music Contest music Wade R. Brown

The Birth of the North Carolina State High School Music Contest-Festival

Over the next two weeks, UNCG will play host to hundreds of students attending Summer Music Camp. The Summer Music Camp, which began in 1983, has grown to be the largest university music camp in America. In two one-week sessions, students are instructed in band, mixed chorus, orchestra, and piano. But the Summer Music Camp […]

Categories
music School of Music

Ronald A. Crutcher: from Cellist to University President

Ronald A Crutcher, 1989  It is always heartwarming to see musicians ascending to high places in academia. Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher served as professor of cello and head of the strings department at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 1979 to 1988. At age 17, he won the Cincinnati Symphony Young Artist Competition. As […]

Categories
Faculty Jazz Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program music School of Music

Jazzing-Up the Campus with Ray Gariglio

Ray Gariglio, 1975  Raymond J. Gariglio came to UNCG in 1966 as a Professor of Music and became the bandmaster for all UNCG performing band ensembles, many of which he founded himself. In 1969, he established the UNCG Jazz Ensemble, the first university-accredited jazz ensemble in North Carolina, and by 1983, his tireless work in […]

Categories
African Americans Charlotte Hawkins Brown Greensboro Civic Music Association music Palmer Memorial Institute Walter Clinton Jackson

Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Walter Clinton Jackson, and Segregated Facilities at WC

February is Black History Month. To celebrate, our Spartan Stories this month focus on remembering important people and events related to the history of African Americans and UNCG. Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown was a prominent African American educator who, in 1902, founded the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, NC (in eastern Guilford County). Due to […]

Categories
big band Darlinettes music Rhythmettes School of Music Woman's College World War II

Darlinettes and Rhythmettes: Big Band Sounds at the WC

In 1942, big band music from the likes of Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, and Benny Goodman were all the rage, but local big bands were hard to find. Most of the musicians in these groups were male, and they were being drafted into military service during World War II. But a group of students at […]

Categories
African Americans Arthur Gist Jr Buddy Gist Chad Eby Jazz John Salmon Miles Davis Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program Miles Davis Trumpet music School of Music Steve Haines

Buddy Gist, the Man Behind the Miles Davis Trumpet

The Miles Davis Trumpet is listed on the UNCG Bucket List Passing through the atrium of the Music Building, it is easy to overlook the modest exhibit featuring a trumpet. It is in a small case, dwarfed by its surroundings. Even upon reading the plaque, it is difficult to believe that the trumpet belonging to […]

Categories
African Americans concerts music race relations The University of North Carolina at Greensboro UNCG

The Motown Invasion of 1968/69

18 year old Stevie Wonder during his1968 UNCG performance (p. 54) In the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, the advancing struggle for civil rights infused nearly every facet of the UNCG and the Greensboro community. The Greensboro environment of this time, while being a volatile scene for race relations, enjoyed musical performances from […]

css.php