Roland F. Seitz
From Marchdb.net
July 14, 1867 - December 2, 1946
Roland Forrest Seitz was an American composer, bandmaster, and music publisher. For his many march compositions he earned the sobriquet “The Parade Music Prince”. He was born on June 14, 1867, on a farm in Shrewsbury Township, Pennsylvania as the youngest of eight children of William and Magdalena Zeigler. His public school education was received in a one-room schoolhouse, and he was then apprenticed in the printing industry. Roland's father, a printer, died when Roland was three years old. During his teenage years, and for some time thereafter, he worked in the printing office of the Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, newspaper. He devoted much of his spare time to the study of music and developed his musical talent.
After playing flute in the family orchestra, he joined the Glen Rock Band, first playing euphonium and later solo cornet. He entered Dana's Musical Institute at Warren, Ohio, in 1894 at the age of 27, completing the four-year course and earning a bachelor's degree in 1898. Following graduation, he returned to Glen Rock and became a full-time teacher of most instruments except strings. He also played in several bands and served as conductor of the Glen Rock Band.
He traveled on several concert tours, composed and published music, and eventually founded his own publishing company (later sold to the Southern Music Company). He married Mattie A. in 1902. They had two children, Charlotte J. (1904-1999) and Nevins H. Seitz (1906-2003). He continued to teach, compose, and play the organ in a local church until declining health forced him to move to his daughter's home in Union, New Jersey in 1944. He died there from a heart attack on December 29, 1946.
Beginning with New York Journal published in 1897, Seitz composed nearly fifty marches. It was his practice, as the titles of many of his marches indicate, to write for special groups, persons, or organizations. One of these marches, Grandioso (1901), is often featured in parades. Grandioso incorporates a theme from the fourteenth of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. Additional well-known marches include Brooke’s Chicago Marine Band (1901), Brooke’s Triumphal (1904), Salutation (1914), and University of Pennsylvania Band (1900). On November 21, 1930, John Philip Sousa conducted the University of Pennsylvania Band at the student quadrangle in Seitz's march for the band. Aftewards, Sousa said: "That is one of the best band marches, aside from my own productions, I have ever conducted".
Seitz opened a music publishing business in Glen Rock. His catalog included compositions by many famous march composers including William Paris Chambers, Harold Josiah Crosby, Charles Edward Duble, Frank H. Losey, George Rosencrans, and Charles Sanglea. In 1908, Seitz became the first to publish seventeen year old Karl L. King’s compositions. Roland’s company was purchased by Southern Music in 1964.
Marches composed by Roland F. Seitz
- Academic Professionals (1928)
- Acorn Club (1901)
- Anacaonda Copper Mines Band (also known Anaconda) (1919)
- Autocrat (1927)
- Battleship Maine (1898)
- Brooke’s Chicago Marine Band (1901)
- Brooke’s Triumphal (1904)
- Cadet Captain
- Cadet Lieutenant
- Cadet Colonel
- Cadet Major
- Cadet Sergeant
- Captain W.J. Stannard (1926)
- The Chaser (1927)
- The Dana (1900)
- DeMolay Band (1930)
- Easy Street (1907)
- The Elks (1906)
- Encomium (1889)
- Enterprise (1916)
- Fort Dayton (1903)
- Friendship (1908)
- G.R.H.S. (Glen Rock High School) (1924)
- Grandioso (1901)
- High School Band (1930)
- The Hummer (1923)
- I.O.R.M. (Independent Order of Red Men) (1906)
- Idora Park (1903)
- The Institute (1899)
- Ithaca (1903)
- Let’s Go (1928)
- Loysville Orphans Home Boys Band (1921)
- March of the Marines (1929)
- Memoria (1928)
- Municipal (1920)
- National Progress (1930)
- The New York Journal (1897)
- Our Defenders (1918)
- Par Ex-cellent (1931)
- Pomposo (1922)
- Port Arthur (1904)
- Radio Pioneer (1925)
- Sakima(1891)
- Salutation
- Spring Garden (1904)
- Student Officers
- The Talisman (1928)
- Third Brigade Band (1924)
- Triumphal (1919)
- The Trombone Hustler(1899)
- Trombones Delight (1889)
- University of Pennsylvania Band (1900)
