Date of Graduation
2003
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MM
Committee Chair
Christopher Wilkinson
Committee Chair
Christopher Wilkinson
Abstract
The Federal Music Project of the Works Progress Administration (FMP) came to West Virginia in 1936 to establish orchestras in the state’s cities and to provide short-term employment for instrumentalists left destitute by the Depression and the advent of recorded sound. These ensembles were also designed to serve a subsidiary purpose: presenting free musical entertainment to the general public to alleviate temporarily the psychological burdens of the Depression. Implicit in their concerns for both displaced audiences and unemployed performers was the existence, prior to the onset of the economic crises of the 1930s, of a thriving culture for art music in West Virginia’s cities that attracted the interests of the local population and necessitated the hiring of many musicians. This thesis recounts the West Virginia FMP orchestras’ activities and explores the history of the pre-Depression antecedents to these ensembles.
Recommended Citation
Stimeling, Travis D., "Preserving art music in the Mountain State: A study of the West Virginia Federal Music Project orchestras, 1935-1939." (2003). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD). 10714.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/10714