Klarinet Archive - Posting 000145.txt from 2004/12

From: "Forest Aten" <forestaten@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] On the matter of the death of Fred Fennell
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 16:28:31 -0500


> It is with the permission of Cathy Fennell Martensen that I
> forward this note.
>

Dan,

I knew Fred for many years. I first met him when I was a senior in high
school. Fred was invited to be the guest conductor for the Texas All State
band in 1969/70. I sat in that band as a student in high school. Over the
years I have had students participate at festivals or honor groups where
Fred was guest conducting or worked as a clinician. He was very dedicated to
music education.
I was able to see Fred more often in more recent years. He was the honorary
music director of The Dallas Wind Symphony. www.dws.org Howard Dunn founded
this group and had convinced Fred that this was going to be the next top
world class professional wind ensemble and that they needed his name to
create the visibility necessary to sell the group. It worked great until
Howard died of cancer. Fred still came and conducted almost every year after
Howard died....and even worked on several recordings. Good recordings, fun
recordings.

Fred's enthusiasm was contagious. He was always a nice guy as long as I knew
him. He knew a lot about music....and especially about music for winds. He
contributed an enormous amount of his free time to all kinds of artistic
efforts.

I'll miss seeing him this year.

Forest

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