Battle of the Nations (1919) Patrick Conway's Band 78 RPM

*DISCLAIMER* NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE MUSIC IN THIS VIDEO. I DO NOT MONETIZE THIS VIDEO. If you own the copyright to this music please contact me first I will take it down immediately! After a successful appearance by the Cortland Band at the 1894 Central New York Volunteer Fireman’s Association convention in Ithaca, New York, Conway was recruited by the judges (including music educator Hollis Dann) to relocate to Ithaca in 1895. He served as director of the Cornell University Cadet Band (predecessor of the Cornell Big Red Marching Band) from 1895 to 1908. He also began teaching students at the new Ithaca Conservatory of Music (predecessor of Ithaca College) at a time when teaching band music and brass instruments was uncommon. Conway formed the Ithaca Band in 1895 and brought the ensemble to national popularity and acclaim. By around 1910, the ensemble came to be known as Conway's Band or Patrick Conway and His Famous Band. In Ithaca, they had a standing contract with the trolley company to perform at Stewart Park (then Renwick Park), but extensive tours brought them around the country to the St. Louis World's Fair, Canadian National Exhibition, Cincinnati Zoo, Corn Palace, Willow Grove Park, the Pan-American Exposition, Atlantic City, Oaks Amusement Park, and the Panama-Pacific Exposition. Many members of Conway's band had substantial success beyond the band, such as Lincoln Holroyd, Getty H. Huffine, Ernest Williams. Conway and the Ithaca Band made many recordings on the Victor and Edison labels. In 1927, they played on the premiere of the General Motors Family Hour radio show. In the stage and film productions of The Music Man, set in 1912, character Harold Hill mentions Conway in the introduction to "Seventy-Six Trombones" alongside other famous bandleaders like Patrick Gilmore and John Philip Sousa. All three were inaugural members of the National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors in 1980.