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Falcone made a national splash on television
with the 1953 band, which made a stunning
appearance at the 1954 Rose Bowl. (Inset)
The bandshell used to attract thousands of
concert-goers every week.
two years before him and was the
director of a pit orchestra in one
of the fine silent film theaters in
the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of
the day) helped him land a job as
an assistant tailor and to find gigs
as a theater musician.
It was in Ann Arbor that
Leonard, while still in his teens,
became an orchestra director
at the important Wuerth
Theater on Main Street, made a
reputation for himself as an artist,
learned the language, became
an American citizen and got
an education at the University
School of Music, a private school
with close ties to the University of
Michigan. There, in the school’s
outstanding orchestra, he rose
to the position of concertmaster,
playing on a violin he had won at
an Ann Arbor street fair. It was
an instrument that earned him
a spot (which he declined) in the
Detroit Symphony. Most of his
future students were unaware
of his violin prowess because of
his overriding reputation as the
world’s leading euphonium horn
soloist. In 1927, just as sound was
beginning to come to the movies,
he was offered an appointment at
Michigan State College as director
of bands. He took it—just
weeks after his brother Nicholas
took the same position at the University
of Michigan. They were to
become a titanic duet of conductors
who for years exchanged
services in a spirit of cooperation
and love of music, encouraging
one another and their respective
bands to reach greater
and greater heights of
musical expression.
The association be-
tween the universities
and the brothers was
so close that in 1934
Leonard Falcone became the
conductor of both the Michigan
State College and University of
Michigan Bands when Nicholas,
trapped in a devastating situation,
was no longer able to conduct.
It was probably the only time in
the history of major university
bands that a single director was in
charge of two competing groups;
little wonder that the local press,
struck by Leonard’s ability, devotion
and stamina, dubbed him
“Iron Man.”
Toward the end of his life, as
homage to his enormous influence
on the music world, Leonard
was awarded an honorary PhD
from MSU. “As a little immigrant
boy, shall we say, I have
come to the top by being granted
this doctorate,” he commented
in an August, 1980, edition of
the Grand Rapids Press. In
1984, he was inducted into the
National Band Association’s
Hall of Fame, joining the ranks
of John Phillip Sousa, Carl King
and Henry Fillmore. A year after
his death, several of his former
students founded the renowned
Leonard Falcone International
Euphonium and Tuba Festival
and Competition at the Blue Lake
Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake,
MI, to provide “a continuing
testimony to the profound influence
of Dr. Leonard Falcone upon
the lives of his students and the
extraordinary level of artistry he
achieved throughout his career on
the instrument he loved.”
I don’t know who has spent
the most years devoted to MSU
and its students, but Falcone is
at least a final contender for the
title. After his arrival on campus
in 1927 at age 28 to take over
as director of bands, he held the
position for 40 years and then he
followed it by another 17 teaching
low brass students in his Music
Practice Building retirement
office, conducting the marching
band in the “MSU Shadows” at
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