Frederick Fennell - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

Dr. Fennell received Columbia University's Alice M. Ditson Conductor's Award in 1969, was presented the Star of the Order from the John Philip Sousa Memorial Foundation in 1985, received an honorary doctorate from Eastman in 1988, and was inducted into the National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors in 1990. He received the Theodore Thomas Award of the Conductor's Guild in 1994. He was also inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2003, he received the Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award from Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia at its national convention in Washington, DC.

Fennell was said to be most fond of the honorary doctorate he was awarded from Eastman, being inducted as an honorary chief of the Kiowa Nation in the 1960s, and receiving a medal of honor from Interlochen in 1989. He made frequent appearances guest conducting such ensembles as the Boston Pops Orchestra 1949 to 1978, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the United States Marine Band, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Interlochen Arts Camp. In 1997, Fennell became the first civilian to conduct an entire concert with the United States Marine Band; and in July 1998 he repeated this at a concert in the Kennedy Center celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Marine Band.

Dr. Fennell was a brother of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music (initiated into the Fraternity's Alpha Nu Chapter at the Eastman School of Music in 1934), and Kappa Kappa Psi, the National Honorary Band Fraternity.

Frederick Fennell Hall was dedicated in Kofu, Japan on July 17, 1992. On April 4, 2006, the Interlochen Center for the Arts opened up state of the art music and academic libraries, with the music library named in honor and memory of Dr. Fennell and his wife, Elizabeth Ludwig Fennell.

At the conductor's request, his ashes were scattered in the woods at Interlochen, Michigan.