Frank Battisti - Teaching

Teaching

Frank Battisti's teaching career began as an instrumental teacher in the Ithaca City Public Schools in 1953. He was appointed Director of Bands at Ithaca High School in 1955 and remained in this position until 1967. He also served as chairperson of the Instrumental Music Department from 1961-67.

The Ithaca High School Band, under Battisti's direction, achieved national recognition as one of the finest and most unusual high school bands in the nation. The concert band performed at the Ithaca College School of Music, Eastman School of Music, Music Educators National Conference (MENC), Mid West National Band and Orchestra Clinic (Chicago 1965), Rockefeller Center, the New York World's Fair (1964) and at other music conferences. In 1997 the John Philip Sousa Foundation selected Battisti's Ithaca High School Concert Band for their Historic Roll of Honor of High School Concert Bands, 1920 1980. This Roll of Honor identifies high school concert bands whose musical excellence at the national level exerted historically significant influence on high school band programs. Eugene Corporon, President elect of the College Band Directors National Association and Director of Wind Studies at North Texas State University, hails the Ithaca High School Band under the leadership of Frank Battisti "as one of the truly great achievements of instrumental music education in the twentieth century."

In 1958 Battisti inaugurated the Ithaca High School Band Commissioning Works Project. From 1958-67, the Ithaca High School Band commissioned 24 works for band. Many of these works were published and have become part of the standard literature for the wind band medium. Composers commissioned by the band included Pulitzer Prize in Music winners Leslie Bassett, Karel Husa, Robert Ward, Warren Benson, David Borden, Carlos Chavez, Barney Childs, Walter Hartley, Vincent Persichetti, Armand Russell, Gunther Schuller and Alec Wilder.

Guest soloists and conductors appearing with the Ithaca High School Band while Battisti was conductor of the ensemble included Benny Goodman, Carl "Doc" Severinsen, Donald Sinta, Harvey Phillips, The New York Brass Quintet, Jimmy Burke, Vincent Persichetti, Norman Dello Joio, Thomas Beversdorf, Clyde Roller, Frederick Fennell, William D. Revelli and Walter Beeler.

In December 1993 Meredith Music Publications published a book, One Band That Took a Chance by Brian Norcross. It is a detailed account of Mr. Battisti's innovative high school band program in Ithaca, New York from 1955-67.