Windjammers Tour C.L. Barnhouse As Part Of Their Visit In Oskaloosa
One of the uniforms of Merle Evans who spent 50 years as bandmaster for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Organized in 1971, Windjammers Unlimited is dedicated to the preservation of circus music. In August of 2009, their membership totaled 575 members with the common interest of bringing back and keeping alive circus music.
The Windjammers are going non-stop while in Oskaloosa. They began arriving in town on the 12th of July. By the 13th, the conductors were having their first meeting at 8 a.m. and by 9 a.m. they had their first session. They had rehearsals during the day going up until 9:30 in the evening.
On Thursday, the group made a visit to the C.L. Barnhouse Co. in Oskaloosa. That’s where I caught up with Andy Glover, Chief Operating Officer for C.L. Barnhouse.
C.L. Barnhouse is celebrating it’s 125th year in the music publishing business. Originally founded in 1886, the company moved to Oskaloosa in 1890 and they are still doing what they started, publishing band music.
Members of Windjammers Unlimited perform a set of songs in tribute to three of C.L. Barnhouse past leadership now buried at Forrest Cemetery
Windjammers and C.L. Barnhouse have a history together. Windjammers joined C.L. Barnhouse in 1986 for their 100th anniversary then “We thought and they thought almost at the same time it would be nice to have them come back for the 125th anniversary,” Glover stated and further went on to explain the connection between the two groups. “The connection between Windjammers and us is that our company years ago published a lot of music that was used in circuses, and a lot of the famous composers of music for circuses for what ever reason kind of gravitated toward our firm. And so our company became associated with circus music and the Windjammers are enthusiasts of circus music, so they always play a lot of our music. They’re very fond of the composers that are in our catalog. They’ve always had a very strong interest in our company and they wanted to come here 25 years ago, and then wanted to come back.”
The Windjammers then left the company headquarters and headed for Forrest Cemetery in Oskaloosa where they performed three songs. They played one song at three grave sites starting with “Lloyd” Barnhouse then moving on to grave of Bob Barnhouse and, with one final climb up a hill, the group finished up their performance at the grave of Charles Lloyd Barnhouse.
You can find the C.L. Barnhouse collection on their website, where you can order sheet music for your bands needs. Walking Frog Records is also part of C.L. Barnhouse, and there you can buy their CD’s and most recent digital downloads so that you can enjoy the hard to find sounds of band music.
Find out more about the Windjammers Unlimited at their website HERE.
