University of Michigan. Symphony Band.

The University of Michigan Symphony Band undertook a historic concert tour in 1961, at the height of the cold war, through the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Near East. This was a United States State Department cultural exchange tour that lasted 15 weeks and which remains the longest State Department sponsored tour in history.

The Band was directed by renowned conductor William D. Revelli, and traveled accompanied by Frederick Moncrieff, business manager for the tour, George Cavender, assistant band director, Doctor Eugene Winkelman, tour physician, interpreters and additional University and State Department staff. "The Symphony Band musicians were America's cultural emissaries, using music to forge common ground".

The Symphony Band played 88 concerts in ten countries which included six republics of the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and the U.S. It was throughout the tour that band members acquired the materials and memorabilia that make up this collection. Altogether, the 94-member band performed for more than 140,000 concertgoers on the tour.

Band members that participated in this tour have celebrated a number of reunions over the years, the most recent one being in October 2011 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the tour.

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Resources used for this section:

Carlin, Marilou. Cold War. Warm Memories. Montage . October 2011. Retrieved from: http://www.montage.umich.edu/2011/10/cold-war-warm-memories/

UM Symphony Band 1961 Russian Tour Site. Retrieved from: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/russiantourband/home

From the guide to the Symphony Band 1961 Tour collection, 1961, 2011, 1961, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)