Leader of the band to retire after school year

Frank Manna founded Marist band in 1964

‘It’s not socially cool to be in the band. I tried to interject new things to move the band, and success breeds success.’

By Maura Vizza

Frank Manna became a teacher to support his growing family. Forty-two years later he is leaving a musical legacy at Marist High School.

Manna, 69, established the Marist band program in 1964 and has headed it ever since. The Catholic high school, 4200 W. 115th St. in Chicago, opened in 1963.

Manna is planning to retire after this school year. He will conduct his last performance Sunday at Marist’s 42nd annual Spring Concert. The concert will be at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 8 and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 9 at the high school.

“A month after I got my degree [my wife] had our first child so I needed a job, so education was the avenue. At least at that time in my life I didn’t know it was gonna be a permanent thing. It wasn’t something I had planned since childhood,” explained Manna, of Evergreen Park. “We started the band with freshman and sophomores, there were only about 26 or 27 at that time.”

Under Manna’s direction the band has toured, participated in various parades across the country and performed in several college bowl games including the Rose Bowl. It also played at Comiskey Park when it opened in 1991.

The growth of the marching band and its continued success made Marist, an all-boys school until 2002, a recognizable musical force in Chicago.

“It’s always amazed me because the machoness of sports or whatever has always been a different part of society and I don’t expect it to change, but for some unexplainable reason when we were all male here — there was some of that attitude for sure — but somehow the strength of the band was so strong that the men of the band were able to withstand that peer pressure and had enough pride,” commented Manna. “It’s not socially cool to be in the band. I tried to interject new things [like the concert tours] to move the band, and success breeds success.”

The band’s fortune and competitiveness were not focal points Manna drilled into his students, he said.

“I always try to tell my students the measure of success is not how you compare with another band or another player, but how you compare with yourself,” he explained. “It’s part of you, it isn’t something that somebody else can tell you, so play for yourself, satisfy your own desires and you’ll be successful. You don’t play for the honor and the glory and the fame [like the school fight song implores]. The music, it’s an art, it comes from your soul.”

Besides working at Marist, Manna was a band director at 10 grade schools on Chicago’s South side until two years ago. He also created the now disbanded Imperial Youth Band of Chicago, a community band for grade school musicians.

Manna’s love for music began at an early age. As a “nice Italian boy,” he said, he played the accordion at 10-years-old and studied piano. His father learned of tuition assistance for band students at Leo High School and Manna proceeded to learn the saxophone and played in the school’s band for four years.

At DePaul University, Manna pursued music and eventually received a degree in music composition and music education.

“I had visions of grandeur of becoming a writer, I was fascinated with composition,” said Manna, who composed the Marist fight song. “I became so involved [with the band] that there wasn’t much time for any writing or whatever and in the meantime our family developed and we had eight children.”

Before working at Marist, Manna taught private music lessons and was also an assistant for his former band director, Leo Henning.

“It’s a total commitment and I became married to this band and consequently my own family had to take second place many, many times,” Manna acknowledged. “That’s probably the single-most reason for not wanting to retire, but what gave me the courage to try to retire is the prospect of not having a calendar that I must live by and be forced to miss family events.”

No one has been chosen to take Manna’s place at the director’s podium, but he hopes the program continues to thrive and that he can be a guest conductor in the future. He also aspires to compose music during retirement.

“I would like to write something for this band and I’ve started lots of times,” Manna noted. “It’s a hobby that would be appealing ... I hope I can fulfill that dream.

“I still love to conduct the band and [love] the music, I could do that for the rest of my life, but I want to enjoy my wife and family,” he said. “I love making the music come to life. I will miss meeting so many terrific young [students], but I think what I will really miss the most is the music.”

This is part of the April 6, 2006 online edition of The Reporter.

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