Music

Music in the Aurora Colony

From 1856 to well into the 1920’s Members of the Aurora Colony Pioneer Band and their immediate descendants enriched the cultural lives of their fellow Oregonians as Oregon’s premier brass band of that era.  The band instruments and the music, much like Aurora itself, fell into obscurity in the 1930’s and much of this heritage was assumed to be lost.

A Tradition Continues

With the organization of the Aurora Colony Historical Society in 1963 some of these materials began to resurface, and in the 1970’s Dr. John Richards, then member of the Oregon Symphony, first took on the task of assembling the bits and pieces of the remaining music while also repairing and reconstructing some of the original band instruments.

Preserving Oregon’s Musical Heritage

As one of Oregon’s best trained professional musicians, Dr. Richards immediately recognized the high quality of the many original compositions and the creative adaptations that the colonists made to the more traditionally known songs.  With this appreciation for the extraordinarily high degree of colony musicianship, Dr. Richards organized concerts utilizing some of the music in 1977 and 1988.  These concerts helped spur the development of an exhibit at the Old Aurora Colony Museum that features many of the rebuilt instruments.

The Oregon Music Project

In 2002 the historical society made an extraordinary acquisition of three cardboard boxes filled with original band playbooks.  Some of the books were in excellent condition but many were badly damaged and all required immediate preservation.  This discovery spurred the historical society’s board of directors to undertake what has become known as The Oregon Music Project.

The tasks to be undertaken by the project include:

  • cleaning and properly storing the play books,
  • photocopying every page including any notes on scraps of paper,
  • entering every note into a special music computer program,
  • creating a conductor’s score for each tune,
  • verifying the originality of the tunes, and
  • publishing band play books using today’s notation and instrumentation.

Bring Back the Music

The primary task of this project is to put this music back into the hands of today’s musicians in schools and communities by making it available to them by 2009.  Written scores with instrumental parts and audio are available for your band.  Here are some examples you may download:

Aurora Quickstep—audio
Aurora Quickstep—score
Aurora Quickstep—parts

Aurora Waltz—audio
Aurora Waltz—score
Aurora Waltz—parts

Aurora Polonaise—audio
Aurora Polonaise—score
Aurora Polonaise—parts

Much Work Remains to be Done

While we have not yet recovered a complete set of band playbooks, this new discovery has made it possible to recreate many of the previously missing parts.  Still, many mysteries remain to be solved. Each musician copied the notes for his instrument in his own unique handwriting. The musicians invented a kind of short hand related to specific directions. Because they wrote in ink, they never corrected mistakes but just remembered the correct note and as musicians changed over time tunes were added or dropped from the books.

Donations and Grants Made This Work Possible

This very detailed and highly professional work has been made possible through individual donations as well as grants from the Kinsman Foundation, the Oregon Cultural Trust, and the Oregon Heritage Commission.

Awards

In 2008, the Aurora Colony Historical Society has received two awards for The Oregon Music Project, the Heritage Excellence Award from The Oregon Heritage Commission and national Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History.