John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa (November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, best known for his US military marches. He earned the nickname "The March King" (or "American March King" to set him apart from Britain's Kenneth J. Alford). His most famous marches include "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (the national march of the United States), "Semper Fidelis" (the official march of the US Marine Corps), "The Liberty Bell," "The Thunderer," and "The Washington Post."

Sousa started out playing violin and studying music theory and composition with John Esputa and George Felix Benkert. In 1868, his father enlisted him as an apprentice in the United States Marine Band. He left that band in 1875, then spent the next five years playing violin and learning conducting. He returned to the Marine Band in 1880 and served as its director for twelve years. In 1892, he left to form his own civilian Sousa Band. From 1880 onward, his work was entirely focused on conducting and composing. He also helped develop the sousaphone, a marching tuba based on the helicon.

When the United States entered World War I, Sousa received a wartime commission as a lieutenant to lead the Naval Reserve Band in Illinois. After the war, he went back to conducting the Sousa Band until his death in 1932. During the 1920s, he was promoted to the permanent rank of lieutenant commander in the naval reserve.

Sousa was born in Washington, D.C., the third of ten children. His father, João António de Sousa (John Anthony Sousa), was born in Spain to Portuguese parents, and his mother, Maria Elisabeth Trinkaus, was German, from Bavaria. Sousa's first music lessons came from John Esputa Sr., who taught him solfeggio, but the lessons ended quickly because of the teacher's frequent bad temper. His real music education began around 1861 or 1862 with John Esputa Jr., the son of his earlier teacher. Under him, Sousa studied violin, piano, flute, several brass instruments, and singing. Esputa Jr. also had a bad temper, making the relationship tense, but Sousa progressed quickly and was found to have perfect pitch. During this time, he wrote his first composition, "An Album Leaf," but Esputa dismissed it as "bread and cheese," and the piece was later lost. Sousa's father played trombone in the Marine Band. To keep his son from joining a circus band, he enlisted him in the Marine Corps as an apprentice at age thirteen. That same year, Sousa began studying with George Felix Benkert. Because he was enlisted under a minority enlistment, he was not discharged until his twenty-first birthday.

In 1868, Sousa joined the Marine Corps at thirteen as an apprentice musician, listed as a "boy." After finishing his apprenticeship, he left the Marine Corps in 1875. He then played violin in a theatrical pit orchestra, where he learned to conduct. He returned to the Marine Band as its head in 1880 and stayed until 1892. During that time, he turned the band into the country's premier military band, focusing its repertoire and instrumentation on symphonic music and holding more rigorous rehearsals. He led "The President's Own" band under five presidents, from Rutherford B. Hayes to Benjamin Harrison, and played at the inaugural balls of James A. Garfield in 1881 and Benjamin Harrison in 1889.

In July 1892, Sousa requested a discharge from the Marine Corps to pursue a more profitable civilian career as a band leader. He organized the Sousa Band that same year, and it toured from 1892 to 1931, playing 15,623 concerts across the United States and internationally, including at the World Exposition in Paris and the Royal Albert Hall in London. Saxophonist Jascha Gurewich, an early popularizer of the instrument in concert halls, was a soloist with the band in the early 1920s. In Paris, the Sousa Band marched to the Arc de Triomphe, one of only eight parades it performed in its forty-year history.

On May 31, 1917, shortly after the US declared war on Germany, Sousa was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve. He was sixty-two, the mandatory retirement age for Navy officers. During the war, he led the Navy Band at the Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago, donating all but a token dollar per month of his naval salary to the Sailors' and Marines' Relief Fund. After the war ended in November 1918, he was discharged from active duty and returned to conducting his own band. In the early 1920s, he was promoted to lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve but did not return to active duty. For the rest of his life, he often wore his Navy uniform during performances. For his wartime service, he received the World War I Victory Medal and was elected a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of Foreign Wars. He was also a member of the New York Athletic Club and Post 754 of the American Legion.

Sousa married Jane van Middlesworth Bellis on December 30, 1879. She was descended from Adam Bellis, who served in the New Jersey troops during the American Revolution. They had three children: John Jr., Jane Priscilla, and Helen. On July 15, 1881, Sousa was initiated into Freemasonry by Hiram Lodge No. 10 in Washington, D.C., and remained an active member until his death. He received various Masonic honors.