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Meredith Wilson Essay

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“76 trombones led the big parade! With 110 cornets close at hand!” Wow, isn’t that a great song? It can get annoying, but yes, it is a fun, upbeat song, created by Mason City’s Meredith Willson. Who is Meredith Willson? How did someone from Mason City get so famous? These questions, and more unanswered questions will be revealed in this essay. All famous people had humble beginnings, Meredith’s just happened to start in Mason City. A simple, quick overview of his life goes a little something like this. Meredith Wilson was born on May 18, 1902, In Mason City, IA. In high school, he learned how to play the piccolo and flute. In 1919, when he was 17, he enrolled at New York’s Institute of Musical Art, where he studied flute. Between 1921-1923, he toured Cuba, Mexico and the US in the John Phillip Sousa’s Band. After that, he worked briefly in New York’s Rialto theater orchestra in 1924. In late 1924-1929, he played flute for yet another orchestra, the New …show more content…

Not a famous date. Not an unknown one. This was Robert Meredith Willson’s birthday. He weighed 14 pounds and 6 ounces, the largest baby in Iowa. That is insanely large, not even joking! Some people might say that growing up, his main goal in life was to be the best at everything he did. In other words, he was a perfectionist. It makes sense though, his mom was a school teacher, and his dad was a lawyer. Both of his parents were musically inclined, so performing was in Meredith’s blood. As the book Meredith Willson The Unsinkable Music Man by John C. Skipper says, “The young Meredith was born full of dreams and inspirations.” By high school, Meredith could play a pretty great flute and was ready and rarin’ to go perform in the John Philip Sousa band. That’s how he was different from other boys, he didn’t want to grow to be a professional baseball player, he wanted to grow up and play in an orchestra. His childhood mainly consisted of music and acting, which makes sense. After all, he is the Music

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