By Scott Pohl, WKAR
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-987034.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI –
For 40 years, bands at Michigan State University were led by Leonard Falcone. While perhaps most recognized for his work with the Spartan Marching Band at football games, Falcone's influence stretched far beyond the gridiron.
A new biography from the Blue Lake Press, Solid Brass, tells Falcone's story from his childhood in a small town in Italy, to his time in East Lansing, and his later years of instruction at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
Leonard Falcone followed his brother Nicholas from their native Italy to the United States back in the teens. Nicholas would go on to lead the band at the University of Michigan, while Leonard took over a ragtag military unit band at what was then called the Michigan State College of Agriculture, in 1927.
Falcone stayed in East Lansing for four decades, leading the marching and concert bands, and continued to teach music privately another 17 years after that.
Author Rita Comstock says Falcone reached an enormous number of people in that time.
"These people he taught went on to teach their own students using his methods," Comstock says, "and the influences that he had on them on their own students, and so it just all reaches very deep."
Comstock played clarinet under Falcone's leadership for a year in the MSU concert band, but she didn't really get to know the man until spending what she describes as three years of having "breakfast, lunch and dinner" with him doing research for Solid Brass. Through extensive reading and conducting hundreds of interviews for the book, she couldn't find a bad word about him.
"He had such a great love for his students, for his music, for the university," Comstock says. "He liked people in general, and I think when you put out that kind of caring, you receive it back, and that's what happened. It's really remarkable, because he's somebody who had to say no to people, yet he didn't make any enemies."
John Madden has directed the MSU Marching Band, which now boasts 300 members, since 1989. "The band we have today," he says, "very much reflects what he imprinted, and it'll last forever."
Madden describes Falcone's legacy at MSU as "obvious and profound."
Falcone did the arrangement of the Spartan fight song the band plays to this day.
"I don't say to the band, 'take up the fight song,' or 'let's play MSU fight song,'" Madden says. "We say, 'let's play Falcone Fight.' That's the nickname, and that's what generations of bands have referred to it as: Falcone Fight."
Madden is quick to remember Falcone's virtuoso baritone horn playing as being world-renowned. And, as an instructor of music, he says Falcone didn't limit himself to those of college age.
"He judged and adjudicated for solo and ensemble festivals for middle school kids in small towns all over the state," Madden recalls, "and at district and state band festivals, and so middle school and high school musicians grew up in this state with feedback about their performances from this legendary leader."
Falcone died in 1985.
Considering how important students were to Leonard Falcone, it seems fitting that proceeds from the sale of Solid Brass will be devoted to music scholarships.
The Solid Brass website includes video from Falcone's MSU career.