50 YEARS AGO AT THE ACADEMY - March 27, 1961
Dr. Maddy reported to the trustee executive committee that the Academy opening should be postponed until at least September of 1962. Artistic and academic leaders had been employed with a target date of the fall of 1961, but too many obstacles remained to open the doors of the new school. Now in his 70th year, Joe Maddy would need to push forward once again to achieve his dream.
March 16, 1892
James Caesar Petrillo was born in Chicago. He studied the trumpet at Jane Addams' Hull House Settlement School but turned his skills to organization instead, becoming president of a local musicians union at the age of twenty-two. At that time, Joe Maddy was playing in the St. Paul Orchestra but would find himself in Chicago only three years later. By 1928, Petrillo had become president of the Chicago local of American Federation of Musicians and Joe Maddy was becoming a nationally-recognized music educator. They first locked horns over the projected broadcast of the National High School Orchestra's Chicago performance, igniting a battle that would continue for the next 30 years. It is tempting to wonder: how different might things have been if these two strong-willed men had met each other playing a gig in their early Chicago years?
March 9, 1959
The president of the Detroit Federation of Musicians telephoned Dr. Maddy to say that he believed the American Federation of Musicians would be glad to end quietly the decades-old feud that put the National Music Camp on the union’s “unfair” list for 15 summers. The union president, James C. Petrillo, had retired a few months earlier, and in the summer of 1959 his successor, Herman Kennin, visited the Camp to affirm the matter. Interlochen could once again broadcast nationally and employ faculty and staff who were members of the union. A famous chapter in our history came to a quiet end.
