Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music - Opus Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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Last November Frederic Winter received a leave of absence for the duration to enter the RCA plant in IndianapoUs. Fred Winter, because of his tremendous energy, training and education, has successfully established himself on the home front. WHERE THEY ARE NOW Lieut, (jg) Morris Hendricks with the Pacific Fleet. Pvt. John Robbins some place with our fighting forces in the Pacific. Sgt. Ralph Martz in the Army Air Corps. William Landrum in training in the Enlisted Reserve Corps of the Army Signal Corps. Golden A. Smith attending the Navy School of Music near Washing- ton, D. C. Harold Modlin as production manager at WLBC, Muncie. Ward Glenn with a Kokomo radio station. Pvt. James Winkel at Camp Swift, Texas. Lieut. William Lett, flying bombardier in the South Pacific. Lieut. Carl Dawson with the Army Motor Transport Service. Since Jim Winkel joined the Army, Mary Esther Guidone is acting as chief engineer with Peggy Million as assistant. Jordan ' s radio department is meeting all demands of the war effort both on the active war front and the home front.

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1 Walter D. Hickman, Acting Head, Radio Dcpartvicnt THE RADIO DEPARTMENT Jordan ' s radio department has come of age. Its influences now are being felt in all branches of the armed forces as well as in war industries, in the school room and in many broadcasting stations. The demands of war Wave caused nearly the complete elimination of men from all radio classes but more women, from the ages of seventeen to seventy-two, are taking radio privately and in classes at Jordan than previously. Radio instruction has passed the fad and experimental stages at the Conservatory and has definitely become a major department comparable to those in the larger universities. On Saturday evening, May H, 1943, Jordan Music, the weekly thirty-minute broadcast of the Conservatory faculty members and students, will observe its one- hundredth consecutive weekly broadcast over Radio Station WIRE atop the Clay- pool Hotel. Jordan Music is now being presented at six o ' clock each Saturday eve- ning for thirty minutes over WIRE as a public service on the part of the station. It is estimated that Jordan Music is tuned in by approximately 7 5,000 homes each Saturday night. Walter D. Hickman, acting head of the radio department for the duration absence of Frederic G. Winter, prepares the script for Jordan Mvisic, acts as producer and commentator. This sounds like Orsen Wells but Hickman claims there is no similarity. Local radio stations are using regularly members of the radio classes. Marjorie Spencer is under contract with WIBC and is a leading member of the Saturday and Sunday Jamboree broadcasts at Tomlinson Hall over WIBC. Peggy Million also is broadcasting over WIBC and may soon go on tour under the auspices of a nationally known product. Shirl Evans, Jr., of the night radio classes, is now a full time member of the radio staff of WBOW, Terre Haute. Robert Lashbrook is in position to become major announcer at Station WAOV, Vincennes. Both men have made good in the full sense of the word.

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AN INTERVIEW OF ' ' NOTE Expanding our point of view and musical experience, it is interesting to observe other symphony orchestras and their conductors besides our own. So we know that a face to face interview with the Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic will prove very interesting. Franco Autori was born Francesco Michelangelo Giuseppe Maria Autoriello, in Naples, November 29, 193 0. He got his earliest impressions of music from his mother, who used to sing songs that filled his heart and his eyes; also from his aunt, who used to practice many hours, and from whom he began his study of piano. At the age of six, he was taken to hear Aida. Deeply moved, mostly by the conductor, he decided then and there to become a conductor when he was grown. At fourteen Franco Autori began the study of violin and composition, having taught himself, at the age of ten, to read any orchestral or operatic score. Entering the Royal University of Naples at seventeen, he intended to take a degree in eco- nomics and commercial sciences. But music lured him on, and at that age he gained his first experience as a conductor, amazing experienced musicians and critics alike. Later he became assistant conductor to such directors as Franco Ghione, Mascagni, Zandonai, and other noted Italian conductors who later became famous in this country as well. In 192 8, after his marriage to an American girl, Autori decided to come to America. He spent the first winter working in New York and Philadelphia, (where, I believe, he became acquainted with our Dr. Sevitzky) , and within eight months after his arrival, received a contract as assistant conductor of the Chicago Civic and Ravinia Opera Companies. When in 193 2 both operas closed, he went to Dallas where he conducted two summer seasons of the Dallas Symphony, organized the Dallas String Symphonietta, a chorus of one-hundred fifty mixed voices, produced opera with entirely local casts, lectured and taught widely. Mr. Autori is a medium-sized man, dark, with thinning hair; warm, vital, cheer- ful Italian temperament; generous, enthusiastic, and outstandingly sincere. He never collects anything he can ' t use. He is a very skillful amateur pho- tographer, a fairly good chess player, and enjoys bicycling. He loves languages, and speaks Italian, French, German and English; a little Russian, Polish, and Spanish. He has studied Latin and Greek. Mr. Autori doesn ' t venture to make very arbitrary statements on modern music, since, he says, we are as yet too close to it to gain a great perspective; and it is not played often enough to make a rigid judgment of it. Mr. Autori doesn ' t believe that any revolutionary action will be taken to revise the present method of instru- m.entation and orchestration as it would cause a period of musical chaos during which time musicians would have to relearn the whole process of music. In 1939, Mr. Autori was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the Buffalo Branch of the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce, an award given annually to the man under thirty-six who has done most for the city of Buffalo.