Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

08/10/2026

For anyone who ever played in one of Mark Foutch's wind bands, you might enjoy checking out our latest acquisition to our music collections. It's a wonderful addition to two Mark Foutch collections.

Mark Foutch Bass Drum — Center’s New Addition Posted on August 10, 2026 by Scott Schwartz Last Friday the Center acquired this bass drum that belonged to Mark R. Foutch, one of Central Illinois’ most well-known community band directors between the 1950s and 2000. According to a Hoopeston, Illi...

07/17/2026

Lots of wonderful fun and musical sounds with this week's ISYM middle school band students. The future of band music in America is in good hands. Sousa would be proud of them.

Illinois Summer Youth Music Middle School Trumpet and French Horn Studio Visits Posted on July 17, 2026 by Scott Schwartz It has been busy these past two days making music with the ISYM middle school trumpet and French horn studios who visited the Center to check out some of our music instrument col...

07/10/2026

Illinois Summer Youth Music Sax Studio Visits the Center Today Posted on July 10, 2026 by Scott Schwartz ISYM Sax Studio Today we had the ISYM sax studio visit the Sousa Archives this afternoon. It was a delight having Andrew Gaffey’s and Jack Govern’s students spend time playing some of our his...

07/09/2026

We enjoyed having the Illinois Summer Youth Music (ISYM) Trumpet Studio visit us today at the Sousa Archives!

Illinois Summer Youth Music Trumpet Studio Visits the Center Posted on July 9, 2026 by Scott Schwartz ISYM Trumpet Studio This afternoon we had the ISYM trumpet studio visit the Sousa Archives to spend time playing some of the Center’s historical cornets, trumpets, saxhorns, post horns, and herald...

07/01/2026

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in July this afternoon. As the extremely hot temperature and unbearable humidity today melts everything that ventures outside, we wanted to showcase some holiday cards that just arrived at the Center yesterday afternoon. All of these cards were sent to us in December, but it took the Post Office over 6 months to get them to us. Funny thing about many of these cards, they were sent to us from as far away as across the street from the Sousa Archives. I guess the US Postal Service needs to restart the Pony Express because today's mail service is slower than molasses in January. No matter. Here's wishing all of our Sousa Archives friends a happy July 4th.

06/30/2026

Summer Band Concert with Flat Sousa and Great Lakes Navy Band Posted on June 30, 2026 by Scott Schwartz Last Thursday the US Navy visited the Sousa Archives, documenting John Philip Sousa’s involvement with the Great Lakes Navy Band during WWI. During their visit, a film crew conducted interviews,...

06/30/2026

Flat Sousa returns to the Sousa Archives for another wonderful summer band concert with the Great Lakes Navy Band.

06/18/2026

The Sousa Archives staff and the spring semester's Archives Administration class completed the arrangement and description of the historical audio-visual recordings from our Station Theatre collection. There are wonderful recordings and other administrative records documenting the extraordinary theatrical accomplishments of Urbana-Champaign's theater community. It was a fun processing project that the students used as one of their first hands-on archives processing projects.

New Audio-visual Recordings Added to the Center’s Station Theatre Collection Posted on June 9, 2026 by Schwartz Scott The Celebration Company at the Station Theatre, a non-profit community theater, was founded by Rick Orr in 1972 in an historic passenger-rail station in Urbana, IL. Originally cons...

06/17/2026

On this day, June 17, in 1929, John Philip Sousa’s “University of Illinois March” premiered on NBC Radio, adding a powerful chapter to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s musical legacy.

Nearly a century later, the march remains a meaningful part of Illinois music history and the university’s proud band tradition.

Read more about the story behind the march: https://www.library.illinois.edu/sousa/2018/01/08/john-philip-sousas-university-of-illinois-march-december-podcast/

University of Illinois Bands

06/09/2026

For those band and orchestra conductors who may have studied score preparation with Paul Vermel or have heard wonderful stories about Paul's work as a conducting teacher, we have finished the processing of his extensive collection of study scores. They are all here ready for folks of all music abilities to use. So stop on by for a short visit or spend an entire day working with these jewels of the conductor's world.

Paul Vermel Music and Papers Now Available for Research Posted on June 3, 2026 by Scott Schwartz The Center has completed the archival processing of the Paul Vermel music and papers, documenting his career as an orchestral conductor between the 1950s and 2013. His carefully annotated scores and rese...