#1 - I visited David Diggs up at Lehigh University this last weekend, and he has already transcribed a suite of music from THE NEW WORLD for wind band.  I listened to part of it on the MIDI.  He has done an awesome job with some rather pedestrian music.  But it will add a lot to the 80-minute CD of 1807, 1907 and 2007 Jamestown Music.

#2 - The Vauxhall Band.  The band books of the 19th Virginia actually have The Vauxhall Band on the front.  I know that there was a Vauxhall-something island in the James for a spell, perhaps a couple of decades before the Civil War.  I think there was even a report of returning party goers falling into the river and drowning.  Was VAUXHALL still functioning during the war, OR if not, are there any accounts of a dance hall or something being re-created during the war to try to recover some bit of musical (and probably drinking) joy amidst the privations of Wartime Richmond.

#3 - My Native Land (Quickstep).  David Diggs has been able to trace down the origin of 15 of the 16 selections in the 19th Virginia Band Books.  The only one he is missing is MY NATIVE LAND.  Does anybody know if there was a poem or piece of sheet music or something of the time (1850-1869) with that title?  I am not sure whether the Native Land was the South, or a an ante-bellum or post-war America.

Randy Cabell

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