They Play American Music

As director of orchestras at Saddleback College and director of instrumental music at Los Amigos High School, I can say with some certainty that Mark Swed’s “Made in America, but Rarely Played Here” (Aug. 13) misses the mark by a long shot.

While it is true that professional orchestras (who have to survive on ticket sales) primarily program music from the rich European tradition of the past 500 years, there are many other performing groups (in greater abundance) that give equal if not greater attention to “American” music of the past 100 years.

If you want to get down to brass tacks, there is simply not as much American music written for orchestra. Of the music “available” to perform, the majority of it is not accessible to the orchestras or to audience members’ ears. If you look at the symphonic wind ensemble (an American institution), you will see works programmed primarily by American composers, especially if you eliminate orchestral transcriptions and focus on original works for wind ensemble. Only recently have European composers become recognized and performed in the symphonic band tradition of America.

Let us not also forget the plethora of truly “American” film music that is programmed by all performing groups. Are film composers any less American than, say, Charles Ives or Aaron Copland? If we as a country have made any contribution to an American culture, it is in the areas of film and theater music, jazz, and the ever-growing litany of symphonic wind music.

JOSEPH MASSARO

Aliso Viejo

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Swed’s piece on the apparent lack of appreciation of the music of American composers brought to mind an unforgettable childhood experience. On an average of two to three times each week, my dear mother insisted that I take a dose of cod liver oil.

It may be that I benefited from this well-intentioned albeit unwanted and disturbing experience, but I would not voluntarily submit to the regimen again. Small and infrequent doses, maybe. . . .

RICHARD A. BASHORE

La Quinta

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It’s evident that American “serious music” receives the same amount of interest in the United States as that other largely neglected gift to the world, American jazz. What to do about this lack of interest? Bring music in its many forms back into the schools, taught by well-paid professionals with passionate enthusiasm.

P.S. I won’t sit through another Bowl performance of Ravel’s “Bolero”--boring!

KAY RUSH

Manhattan Beach