1. Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore was an Irish-born American composer and military bandmaster who lived and worked in the United States after 1848.
12 Facts About Patrick Gilmore
1. 2.
Patrick Gilmore started his music career at age fifteen, and spent time in Canada with an English band.
3.
Patrick Gilmore settled in Boston, Massachusetts in 1848, becoming leader of the Suffolk, Boston Brigade, and Salem bands in swift succession.
4.
Patrick Gilmore worked in the Boston music store of John P Ordway, performing as a member of "Ordway's Aeolians", a blackface minstrel group, with whom he played tambourine.
5.
When peace resumed, Patrick Gilmore was asked to organize a celebration, which took place at New Orleans.
6.
Patrick S Gilmore was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York.
7.
Patrick Gilmore held the first "Promenade Concert in America" in 1855, the forerunner to today's Boston Pops.
8.
Patrick Gilmore set up "Gilmore's Concert Garden", which became Madison Square Garden.
9.
Patrick Gilmore was the musical director of the Nation in effect, leading the festivities for the 1876 Centennial celebrations in Philadelphia and the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886.
10.
Patrick Gilmore was the first American band leader to feature the saxophone.
11.
The French Garde Republicaine military band performed at the World Peace Jubilee and Patrick Gilmore was sufficiently impressed that in the following year he reorganized his band to include the instruments that the French band introduced to American ears.
12.
Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.