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John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa was born on November 16, 1854, in Washington DC. He was a famous composer and skilled bandmaster. Sousa was musician in the Marine Band. His parents could not afford to send him to Europe to study music, but later Sousa said "I feel I am better off as it is...for I may therefore consider myself a truly American composer." He was taught a variety of music by John Esputa, his music teacher. He enrolled in a private music class with Enpusta as the teacher. He studied piano and a large variety of music but he loved the violin the most. Sousa was very talented with the violin and at 13 was almost persuaded into joining a circus band. Instead, his father enlisted Sousa as an apprentice musician in the Marine Band. Except for a period of six months, Sousa remained in the band until he was

20. Sousa wrote many types of music, from songs to orchestral suites, from operettas to waltzes, from marches to symphonic poems. Sousa's greatest fame lays in his marches, and throughout the world was known as "The March King." Sousa took a simple military march and gave it his own style. He created over one hundred marches. Some of his best known marches include "The Washington Post," "Thunderer," "El Captain," "Hands Across the Sea," and his most famous work, "the Stars and Strips Forever." Sousa wrote five novels and an autobiography in 1928. Sousa played his works in theaters and dance orchestras. He toured with a variety show. In 1877 he played in Jacques Offenbach's orchestra when famous French composer toured the US Not much later did Sousa write "The Smugglers," just one in many that Sousa would write in the