Joseph E. Maddy

Who was Joseph E. Maddy?

Joseph Edgar Maddy was a pioneering American music educator.

He was born in Wellington, Kansas where both of his parents were teachers. He attended Wichita College of Music in Wichita, Kansas where he studied violin and later joined the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. He was also the first music supervisor of instrumental music in America in 1918 in Rochester, New York. After a short time in Rochester, he was encouraged by Will Earhart to take a job at Morton High School in Richmond, Indiana to revive the outstanding school and community music program Earhart had developed there some years earlier. He remained in Richmond for four years.

In 1924 Maddy was invited to Ann Arbor to be the supervisor of music in public schools and the Music Department head for the University of Michigan, where he developed one of the few conducting courses in the country. and also conducted the Michigan All State High School Orchestra. While teaching in 1925, Maddy organized the first National High School Orchestra to play for the Music Supervisors National Conference in Detroit in 1926. In 1927, Maddy was invited to bring the National High School Orchestra of over 250 High School musicians from 39 states, to the MSNC in Dallas that year.