VanderCook College of Music
Hale A. VanderCook Collection
Hale A. VanderCook (September 3, 1864 – October 16, 1949) was a cornetist, conductor, composer, and music educator. After leading several regional and circus bands, he settled in Chicago in 1905 where he studied under A.F. Weldon. He taught his own students as early as 1909, and took over Weldon’s business in 1914. He began advertising the VanderCook Cornet School in November 1914.
The Hale A. VanderCook Collection in the VanderCook College of Music Archives includes photographs, correspondence, manuscript and published music scores, audio and video recordings, and such items as Mr. VanderCook’s conducting jacket and baton.
VanderCook published band scores and instrumental solos from the late 1800’s well into the 1940s.
VanderCook composed over 70 marches. Among the most famous are American Stride, Olevine, Pacific Fleet, Pageant of Columbia, and S.S. Theodore Roosevelt. He published his Course in Band and Orchestra Directing in 1916.
VanderCook speaks
Our archives includes several dozen acetate discs that were evidently recorded in the 1930s-40s (rarely dated, unfortunately). The collection includes this recording of Mr. VanderCook reading from his book “Expression in Music”
