Inventory of the Staff and Faculty Papers, The John Turk Papers, 1865-2004

Biography of John Turk

A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Mr. Turk holds degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College and Indiana University. While at Indiana University he held two graduate fellowships and was awarded the University's coveted Performer's Certificate. He has studied with William Bell, Harvey Phillips, Keith Brown, Chester Schmitz, and Ronald Bishop. In 1967 and 1968 he was an Arthur Fromm Fellow performing with the Berkshire Festival Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Center. He had also performed with the United States Army Band in Washington D.C., the National Orchestral society of New York, the Blossom Music Festival Band, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. Mr. Turk has performed under such noted conductors as Sir Adrian Boult, Jorge Mester, Aaron Copland, Erich Leinsdorf, and David Effron. John Turk has been principal tuba of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra since 1972. During his tenure with the orchestra he has performed both the Concerto in F Minor for Bass Tuba and Orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Tuba Concerto by John Williams. He has also appeared as a soloist on the orchestra's Pops Concerts as well as the inevitable performances of Tubby the Tuba on Children's Concerts. John Turk has been a member of the faculty of the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University since 1972, holding the academic rank of Professor. In addition to teaching tuba and euphonium, he directed the Dana Contemporary Music Ensemble for eleven years. He also instituted and teaches one of the nation's first college-level courses in the history of rock-and-roll music. In 1994, Mr. Turk was awarded Youngstown State University's "Distinguished Professor Award". Daniel in the Lion's Den by W. Francis McBain is featured on the Youngstown State University's DC entitled Lions, Jugglers, and Dragons, Oh My! Low Blows! his CD of solo and chamber works for the tuba, was nominated for a 1993 Grammy Award. Mr. Turk's recently completed book, The Musical Danas of Warren, Ohio, presents a detailed history of the Dana School of Music .

Scope and Content

The materials in this collection were assembled and donated to the YSU Archives and Special Collections by John Turk. Much of the information was used by Professor Turk in his writing, The Musical Danas of Warren, Ohio. The collection contains a wide variety of materials because of this the collection is artificially arranged by type. A copy of the original inventory is attached to the accession form.

Series I includes various lists of students and faculty from the Dana School of Music1870-1980, 1995, and undated, however some materials in this series are restricted due to personal information that is confidential (SSN, address etc...). The minutes of the Young Men's Christian Association from the years 1937-1943 are contained in Series II. During this time, the Dana Institute of Music became part of Youngstown College and moved from Warren, Ohio to Youngstown. Series III contains various materials related to the faculty of the Dana School of Music from the years 1927-2004 (most of which are newspaper clippings found in the Jambar or the Vindicator). Series IV involves various publications of William Henry Dana, hand written musical compositions and various manuals of Nellie Gwynne Dehnbostel, and various marches, one dedicated in 1865 to William Henry Dana's uncle, Charles Anderson Dana. The photographs in the collection in Series V contains four sub-series, the first to the Dana family, the second to various students, faculty and the buildings that housed the Dana School of Music, the third to the opera's that the Dana School of Music performed from the 1900s to 1960s, and the fifth is to the negatives. Many of the photographs in this collection were taken by the Youngstown Vindicator. Copyright issues will have to be taken into consideration. Series VI contains the Subject Files in the collections, various materials from posters to student transcripts; however some of the material were too large to be housed in the collection and were filed in the Flat File Drawers. Series VII is contained in two manuscript boxes each box containing a Scrapbook containing various programs and photographs associated with the Dana School of Music. The final part of the collection in Box 4 contains a thin threaded French flag with "Vive la France" sewn into it.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

First Box First Folder has personal information. Folder inside folder 1 *RESTRICTED INFORMATION* from 1949, 1965-1966, 1995.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

Staff and Faculty Papers, The John Turk Papers, 1865-2004, RG 62/3, Archives & Special Collections, William F. Maag, Jr. Library, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio.

Detailed Description of The Collection

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