11. The Stars and Stripes Forever

Holy Spirit Episcopal Church

The Stars and Stripes Forever has closed each “Old Fashioned Fourth Concert”, as it will today. It is by far the most famous of John Philip Sousa’s many marches, and in 1987, an act of Congress made it officially the national march of the United States. Less well-known is that Sousa wrote the piece to promote national unity, which was much threatened in the days following the Civil War. The three themes of the piece are intended to represent the three regions of the country – the North, the South, and the West – and at the last section of the piece, he brings them all together to represent the unity of the nation. The famous piccolo part here is played by then-organ scholar Jared Cook, who is quite familiar to us at Holy Spirit. (from 2015)